28th November 2006
We were all coasting this tour exhaustion by now, waking up in the morning was emotionally and physically punishing. My body was crying out for more sleep that morning but the alarm spoke the truth, it was time to get up. I made my way to the meeting point and we set off for cardiff and the first show of our headline uk tour. I think we'd all forgotten what it was we were actually doing and about halfway through the journey i suddenly realised that the next 9 gigs were probably going to be damn fun. The Point in Cardiff is an old church, quite large but re-furbished inside so its generally lost a lot of its churchly charm. Our support band tiny dancers turned up with lots of equipment. Their tour manager was Neil who we'd met when he was tour managing editors. They had some very nice merchandise that was apparently hand sewn by the singer's girlfriend. As their merchandise had a production team of one this meant that there was only one scarf and although it was a very nice scarf and i could afford it, i didn't want to take it away from a more deserving, scarf wearing tiny dancers fan who'd appreciate it on more levels than i would.
We took the time after sound-check to go and have some supper with seth riddle at his favourite italian restaurant. The walls were adorned with photos of seth and his cerys as it was here that they'd had their wedding reception. It was good to see him and the food was satisfying. You can always trust a good meal to remind you how exhausted you are and shortly after the meal i started to wilt. "One thing for it" i said to myself (another sign of fatigue; insanity) and decided to drink through it as they say. A few pints of guinness later and we were on stage. Not a massive turn out but those present seemed to enjoy themselves. Tom's new game of throwing a pineapple into the audience backfired slightly when the girl he threw it to must of taken her eye off the fruit and it delivered a substantial whack to her upper left leg. I don't think we're insured for fruit related injuries to fans, if you're reading we are sorry and hope bruising was minimal..... please don't sue.
There was no hotel booked that evening, it was another night at sea.. well four hours or so across the irish sea from fishguard to rosslare. I cant really remember much about it but it was quite rough and i resisted going to bed as long as possible to drink stella in the restaurant with tom and matt instead. The next thing i remember was waking up in the van being told we had a radio interview at 10 am. It was a tough call but eamon and i went and did the interview for phantom fm straining to act normally. "Fuck you look tired" said the dj when she came out of the studio to greet us. It went quite well really and i was even sharp enough to stop her from playing Porcupine or Pineapple because of the swearing. We hopped back in the van and checked into our hotel. Eamon and I did another interview, he drank wine i drank two strong coffees. There was a distinct lack of cohesion in our thought patterns, we'd end up rabbeting at him about stuff that bore no relation to the questions and he just said "erm" a lot. From there we walked back to our hotel and slept uneasily for a few hours.
It was quite a small venue we were playing in Dublin but we knew it'd be a good show. I watched all of tiny dancers' set that night and thought they were pretty good despite only just fitting on the stage, their sound man steve did a good job. Our set was a ripper, people were digging it, singing along and bopping up and down. We left the stage and some guy just climbed on stage and followed us into our dressing room. At first i thought he was a mate of someone else in the band until he started falling about the place completely drunk. The promoter came back and removed him, it was a shame as he'd obviously just had a really good time and overlooked the situation. I felt a bit bad afterwards as our t-shirt selection couldn't cater for a man who was of the extra large variety and id neglected to order any of his size. Next time mate, i promise. By now we were truly knackered and had to retire to our hotel for some sleep despite the place turning into a massive club and filling up with dublin's young and careless.
It was off to Belfast come the morning and after a slight delay caused by some problems with the one way system, we were off. Tonight's show was at queen's university union. My grandfather went to queens but i don't think the union was there in his time. We were playing a late show as part of a club night so in effect, we were (as i like to say) the entertainment, which means not everyone is necessarily there to see the band; it could get nasty. By the time we went on everyone was hammered and up for it and there was definitely a brakes contingent who were more than excited. During disco party a girl fell down and seemed to get her head wedged between the stage and the left side of the p.a. Tom and I glanced bizarrely at each other as we watched her friend yank her out from where she was stuck. I asked her if she was ok once the song was through and she seemed to be fine although obviously very pissed.
That night we stayed in another b'n'b. Andy is very particular at making sure our accommodation is cheap and cheerful and as little like a travelodge as possible. Lets just say every night is interesting. On checking in to this particular place Andy requested if it was possible to lengthen the end of breakfast from 9 to 9:30. "Do you want to stay here or not?" was the response he got. It didn't matter as we had to be up early to get the ferry back over to the mainland.
We'd heard there were only 7 tickets left for the king tuts's Glasgow show and by the time we'd driven the picturesque drive up from stranraer it was sold out. A sold out show at tut's is a thing of beauty, they even give you a bottle of whisky as a prize. I was already pretty chuffed to be home and this time i had a bit of time to do the right thing and take my long suffering girlfriend out for dinner to make up for not actually being home, ever, at all. The food they lay on at tuts is great, don't get me wrong but we wanted a bit of privacy so went to a nice fish restaurant just down the road and had a splendid time. The gig itself was lush, there was this big american guy going nuts right down the front and the whole place was rammed and dripping. Big thanks to Le Reno Amps for supporting us again, love those guys. Some woman went up to eamon afterwards and said one thing; "Lesbianism!". What she meant we'll never know. The inner exhaustion was starting to really build up now, you can put it off and try and ignore it but its always there making you weird. Once your duties are fulfilled for an evening there's little you can do to stop yourself flopping into a heap on the floor but at least i was at home in my own bed, for a change.
We were up and off to Leeds the next day. We had not played in Leeds for a while so it was no surprise that the gig had sold out and had been upgraded to the larger room of the cockpit next door. Our soundcheck was a bit shitty that day. Something was set up wrong with the pa, like the thing wasn't running on full power or something, it sounded toss and the in house engineers seemed too incompetent to fix it and didn't really give a shit. One of them had stupid spiky hair and kept saying "Id better ring Sean". I gave in to the fact that it was most likely going to be a bit of a shitter and that we'd just had to get through it the way it was but it turned out alright and the place was heaving, again. Im not used to doing headline shows where you can see several hundred people in the audience. The front row were quite chatty and kept offering their hands for high fives. I obliged a couple of times but realised that it probably looked a bit shit from the back. We had some japanese dudes down that day filming for a program for mtv2 japan showcasing rough trade bands. I hope we get to go out there next year, maybe australia too. After the show we were laid to waste again, just shattered and we all just wanted to go to bed. That nights b'nb was one of the freakiest. Me and eamon's room had a toilet in the corner and a shower next to it, separated from the beds with a frosted glass panel. It was also opposite a brothel which Andy unfortunately mistook for a late night bar with embarrassing repercussions.
It was a short dash over to Manchester the next morning. I made the mistake of having a nap on the way which totally screwed my brain for the rest of the day. My body desperately wanted to shut down and go into what i call 'repair mode'. Id never played the roadhouse before and id heard some bad things about it but it seemed like quite a cool little gig. As i was leaving after sound-check to go to the pub a guy was enquiring with an employee as to whether there were any tickets left. It was sold out and he looked really disappointed so i put him on our guest list, that was my good deed of the day. The gig was really good that night, packed out again and bloody hot. We did a good trade in t-shirts that night too and pretty much sold out of stock.
We drove down to birmingham the next day for what would be i think the 4th time we've played the bar academy. When we arrived we saw that on the sign outside it said Monday: Breaks. This was annoying so we had it changed to the correct spelling pronto and then all went our separate ways to do a bit of shopping. There were a few CD's i wanted but i was disappointed on a whole with the major chain's selection in birmingham. Borders in particular had gone quite down hill from what i remembered. I suppose the proximity to christmas forces them to fill their racks with guaranteed sales, compilations and snow patrol for 3 quid. Shopping centers really are dangerous things and before long i found myself in John Lewis gazing in wonderment at all the nice things i could buy. Luckily chris phoned me and told me to come to the pub where he and eamon were drinking winter ale. A quick half and then it was time for sound-check. The bar academy is quite small and there is no dressing room or backstage area to speak of so our rider was flung down on a fusbal table which we stood behind at the back of the room. Stuffy commented that it looked like we were presenting a student cookery program. It was a pleasure to welcome stuffy/the fuses as second support to the tour. Id never seen them and they were very good. Not too many people there when they started but it slowly filled up. Tiny Dancers played and looked a bit cramped again, then it was our turn. It always feels like you are playing to the front row at the bar academy as the stage is pretty much on the same level as the audience and there's only about ten foot of width to it. We had fun though and the gig was a bit different, lots of improvising and spontaneous stuff. Afterwards we chatted to lots of people as well as the tiny dancers who had been given a box of wine as an apology for not being allowed back into the venue by the security after they'd had dinner. On leaving birmingham we listened to scritti politi's cupid and psyche 85 album which really pissed everyone off except for me then we drove into darkness for miles before reaching our destination at a strange country club somewhere near stoke on trent. The room was huge and very warm with flowery decor and a trouser press. I was confused and delirious, i had to sleep but first i watched some telly to wind down and discovered that whichever fuck wrote the new lil' chris single has shamelessly ripped it off the buzzcocks and should definitely be hung.
I was still annoyed about this come the morning and hadn't risen in time to make breakfast which was apparently very good, but it was the last day of 8 gigs in a row and that was something to be proud of. To London we drove and we were there in no time. As usual all our phones started buzzing with the late guest-list requests but as tonight's show was another sell out there was little we could do. The venue at kings college is on the the top floor of the union and is positioned at a convenient bend in the river allowing a spectacular panoramic view. Our dressing room was all the way down in the basement so getting from there to the gig took repeated lift journeys. The room had a big table and many comfy yet serious looking chairs around it. In the corner was a white board with various slogans like "knowledge=power" written on it and questions like 'what do you want?' and 'how are you going to get there?'. This was encouraging thinking for our london show. After sound-check Eamon, Sam, Chris and I went out for some food. After a bit of wandering we found a sushi place on high Holborn. I was feeling adventurous and ordered some sea urchin which arrived looking like the faeces of a very ill dog. With this in mind i just couldn't stomach it and had to leave it uneaten. The gig was just starting to fill again for stuffy and the fuses who sounded even better than the night before. There were many people to greet and talk to, people who work for us and who we work for interested to see how we're getting along. Like the growth of hair, its hard to notice if your band is getting better. I think you'd know if you were getting worse but playing the songs night after night really tightens you up to a point where you don't really have to think about it. Its no accident that London shows are booked at the end of tours for this very reason. It seemed to be a mixture of people who loved our first album and those that had recently gotten into our new album in attendance that night. You could spot them apart quite easily. Good to see a bit of a moshpit down the front, unfortunately the pineapple made it back onto the stage and my hands got all sticky with its juices.
After two days off we finished the tour at Brighton's Pavillion Theatre. Brakes had never played this place although id played there with every other band i've ever been in. Id also seen a lot of shows at the theatre whilst growing up in brighton, everyone from silver sun to god speed you black emperor. I was feeling a bit tender that day as being back in brighton had awoken the party monster in me and the previous night had been spent drinking far too much vodka with old friends. We were a bit disappointed that the promoter hadn't hired in a p.a that was going to be loud enough for us and the audience. Subsequently sound-check was a bit chaotic. Eamon and Tom then rushed over to resident records for an acoustic in-store. There were about 40 people there, I stood outside breathing in as much cool air as i could. I could see eamon and tom through the window performing but couldn't hear them. Instead there was a gypsy man singing tender love ballads whilst gently plucking a guitar. That was my soundtrack to their gig, it was all quite surreal in my delicate state. I walked back to the venue in time to catch the vile imbeciles, our first band on. The band is the new project of ex 80's matchbox guitarist and my old flat mate Andy Huxley. They were awesome and i was glad they played although Andy had convinced himself that everyone was going to hate it which pissed me off. The place slowly filled up, friends and family arrived, Stuffy played and the audience were very quiet. I was in one of those "I cant do it!!" kind of moods by the time we were due on stage, of course i actually could and i did and it was all good. Much reveling was had afterwards. Some of us relocated to the gloucester club for more drinking and shouting in each others ears and when it was late enough to pretend that its early enough for breakfast, we did just that. The food is awful at the market diner but the experience of being there is great, so many different kinds of people, mostly drunk but all eating fried food. For me thats where the tour ended, with double servings of black pudding and too many chips.
A Merry Yule to you all, thanks to everyone who came to see us over the last few months, see ya'll next year.
Sunday 24 December 2006
Wednesday 6 December 2006
killers dates and spain
Holy Moley!
Instead of making regular updates i've been writing as i go with the intent of bombarding one and all with this essay detailing the first two weeks of recent brakes activities. Hold on to your braces, its a bumpy one!
First up was this mega tour with da killerz. These guyses were putting on quite a show, a real high spec operation. They even brought their own floor. The tour for us started in brussells at the ancienne belgique and we had a good one. We've always been a bit unlucky in brussels so it was a relief to have a incident free time there. Being a support band we dont really have time between souncheck and show to get up to anything like eating out or doing a bit of sightseeing. I was lucky enough to have a few friends who live in antwerp come to the show so i got taken out afterwards. We ended up in a quaint little aged bar that had tobacco stained books nailed to the walls and 10 inch records hanging from the rafters. I drank lots of Leffe, smoked many cigarettes and then wobbled back to our hotel which was further than i thought. I kept my eyes peeled as eamon had an incident in that area once that ended up with ex-merch man keith the gypsy being mugged for his phone. I got back safely and after a sleep we headed for Paris. A remarkably strange thing happened just before we left. The van was a bit stinking so i filled a box with anything that was rotting or detritus and carried it a few yards down the road to a big bin. Eamon lifted the lid up for me and when we peered inside there were two pipettes set lists staring back at us.
This was even stranger seeing as i was to see bobby cassette later that day in Paris.
It didn't take long to get there and as we were driving in the shit weather passed by and the sun shone down on the autumnal parisian streets. I was looking forward to playing the bataclan, i've got a few live albums that were recorded there so i was interested to see what the place was like. There was a little stretch of grass and water features in the middle of the boulevard and i appreciated the fact that the journalists asked us if we wanted to do the interviews there because of the nice weather. From there we could see the venue was painted all manor of bright colours. Back in our dressing room and the french had been as generous with their rider as usual with all sorts of cheeses and meats and everything we'd asked for on our rider. Unfortunately no promoter supplied us with the red jacketed squirrel walking a tightrope in a miniature circus big top accompanied by four circus trained mice doing tricks as requested......yet. We took the stage feeling happy and the crowd seemed up for it. When eamon revealed we were from brighton, uk there was an almighty cheer. It became obvious that lots of the audience were british. 80% in fact as i later learnt from kiilerz tour boss jeremy. This seemed bizzare but understandable for a band their size. As these shows have gone on we've come to realise that the killers are a band people are willing to go to great lengths to see and seemingly make a weekend of it. Their presence in every town is noticeable, you overhear people talking about the show, all the hotels are booked up with people going to the show. Our gig was good that night and afterwards we had a drink with bobby in the bar next door. They served entrecote and good red wine but played kasabian, editors and the rakes on the stereo for all the anglaise.
The next day we set off for the long drive to amsterdam. I made a start on a brakes tour film i'm making with imovie and my mobile phone. It might take me a while to edit and it's going to be pretty crude but hopefully it'll be done by christmas. We arrived a little late and we were instantly rushed into a few interviews. Somehow I ended up doing a couple on my own and they were most enjoyable, well informed and intelligent interviews. Questions you could give proper answers to and a few that took a bit of a think to answer. We sound-checked the main room at the paradiso and then just hung about for a bit before we played. We'd only ever played the smaller room there so we were looking forward to it. There wasn't much room on stage so i felt a bit boxed in when it came to the gig. Tom threw a pineapple into the crowd, as carefully as possible of course, you could do some damage with one of those, the crowd seemed to appreciate the free fruit. We played ok but it was nothing on paris. As we were trying to squeeze our gear off stage i suddenly got doused in beer. I looked up to see where this alcoholic shower had come from and saw that a lady was carelessly dangling her drink over the balcony and letting it spill down onto the stage, and more importantly onto the killers' guitar tech's workstation. I flung a few optical daggers her way but she was off on one having a good time and not really thinking. Trying to forget about the dousing i carried on loading off stage until a plastic cup then hit me on the head. My initial reaction to all this was that someone must have really not liked the show but i think that was just me being paranoid and that it was probably just accidentally kicked through the gaps in the railing or something. Anyway, it fucking pissed me off and i was in a shit mood until a lot later. We had a few booze treats backstage and then went off to find our hotel. Amsterdam can be a confusing place to get around and we got a bit lost but found it eventually and after convincing the receptionist that we were booked in to the establishment, those of us that still had a thirst headed out to find a suitable drinking spot. We ended up in a jazz bar that we'd been to before, a long, thin and smoky place with a band at one end and a bar at the other. It was quite late already but it seemed to stay open for a hell of a long time. Some of killers' crew showed up along with big nige, our old driver, now back-line tech for the arctic monkeys. What with eamon's bro steve being there too it was quite a party. Apologies to those who we'd arranged to meet there earlier, we just couldn't get our shit together in time. Ta for coming though.
We had a day off the next day and we engineered it so we could stay in amsterdam and travel by night on the ferry to harwich. It was a glorious autumnal day and amsterdam was gleaming. Amazingly we managed to find a restaurant that we'd been taken to on a previous visit to the city and there we had brunch and planned our day ahead. We couldn't resist a wee cycle around vendal park so we all hired some bikes and set off. It was lush bombing around looking at the birds and the trees. The park seems to be home to lots of tropical birds for some reason, i think they were parqueets or something like that, bright green with a mighty squawk. Saw a couple of herons too!
Tom had a couple of pre-rolls he'd purchased from a local smokery so we stopped for a wheeze. Maybe I'm getting old but that stuff is pure toxic trip weed, not for the faint minded and seeing as i was feeling slightly of that ilk given the previous night's reveling i went a bit funny after a couple of toots. Once back on the cycles i started not being able to see anything that wasn't moving the same speed as me, quite dangerous really. By this point we were lost, everything started looking the same and we must have been around the park six times before we worked out how to leave. We took the bikes back and wondered what to do with the remainder of our day. Conveniently enough the nearby cinema was showing Borat just before our designated leaving time. 80 minutes or so and a lot of laughing later we departed amsterdam and headed to the hook of holland for our boat back to england.
After a satisfying sleep at sea we headed to wolverhampton for the first of the 4 uk shows we'd be doing with brandon and co. It was saturday and the following day was another day off so on the way we checked into a weird little b'n'b at the foot of the peak district with the intent on spending our day off with a hike and a pub lunch. The place was called the dog and partridge and was fucking weird. The reception was adorned with hundreds of teddy bears all shapes and sizes and we seemed to be the only people there. We had a spot of lunch and then headed to wolverhampton. The gig was good at the civic hall, i had family present so i was a little nervous but we had a good one. I was interested to find out what the killers' uk audience would be like but they were as reserved and polite as the fans in europe, give or take a few obsessives who boo'd for the sake of it but thats to be expected really. We drove back to the dog and partridge after the show and had a sleep.
There'd been a weird two day flu bug going around the band, eamon had it first then me, then al and now it was tom's turn. He was too ill to come for a walk the next day and opted for some bed action instead whilst Alex stayed in wolverhampton with his girlfriend harriette. So it was eamon, tour manager andy, sound guy chris and myself who headed to Hartington for a day out. We bumped into a few keen hikers who gave us directions for a nice 3 mile walk.
It mainly followed the path of a picturesque river in a deep valley then headed up through some cow fields before coming downhill and back into the village. We had a nice roast and a few pints whilst watching some bizarre pagan morris dancing thing out the pub window. It was a good day off.
The rest of the uk shows were fresh. In manchester we went boozing at big hands and got quite merry. Then in hull we played a sweet gig in a 5000 capacity ice arena and then watched casino royale at the odeon next door. It was most entertaining. Glasgow was great of course. I got the chance to go home and wash my clothes which really needed to be done. It was nice to be home if just for a short while. We got the killers an Aerosmith cd and the second series of green wing as parting gifts. They were quite pleased with the cd but a little confused by the dvd, hopefully they'll find it funny. It was a good experience all in all, a good way to tighten up for our own tour and sound practice if we ever become as massive as they are. I'm not sure if their crowd would have all been into us but as long as a few people came away impressed then thats ok.
That night we got about an hour and a half sleep before we had to get up and off to the airport. We didn't want to miss the chance of supporting the killers in glasgow and we also didn't want to have to cancel our spanish tour so our flight to bilbao had been arranged to make sure both were possible. This meant flying from glasgow to amsterdam at 5 to 6 in the morning, then amsterdam to paris and finally paris to bilbao. It looked horrendous but we got through it, delirious with the exhaustion and quite excited about going to spain.
Andy got sacrificed at Charles de Gaulle for the sake of a kick drum pedal that they wouldn't allow us to take as hand luggage. He waited for the next flight and checked it in the hold. It seemed ridiculous seeing as we'd taken it on two flights already. When the rest of us got to Bilbao the exhaustion kicked in and we all started to trip out a bit. Luckily our hotel was posh as fuck and we weren't treated like peasants when we got there. A few hours and a much needed bath later and we headed to the venue for sound-check. The band we were supporting are called surfin bichos, an established spanish band who had been big in the 90's and had apparently re-formed recently. There was a bit of confusion between us a their crew at first, not helped by the language barrier and the fact that Andy was still in paris. All confusion was eventually smoothed out and we had a good first show. I was feeling sick with exhaustion afterwards so i sat at the back of the room and watched the main act.
A guy came up to me and said "next time do not say goodbye, you must play four more songs!", I took this as a compliment. Surfin Bichos sounded alright although a lot of their songs reminded me directly of other songs but just without any distinguishable melody. They seemed like quite dour individuals too, no smiles or jokes and hardly any inter band eye contact during the gig at all. We hit the hotel for a bit of kip but were back up at 5:30 am for departure to madrid.
A coach had been laid on to take both bands and their crew down to madrid and to barcelona the next day but when it came to it the headliners opted to travel separately which left just us, their crew and a film crew. The film crew must have been making a film about the band getting back together or something. They were filming everything all the time. I managed to sleep most the way to madrid which was a blessing as I'm usually really bad at sleeping on the move. Chris and I went for a stroll once we'd arrived, loaded out and checked in.
We went in search of this cable car thing called the teleferico that dangled above a park to the west of the city. Unfortunately when we got there it was seasonally closed, then it started to rain and before long we realised we were wandering through the equivalent of the west end of madrid, all theaters and tourist shops. Found a doll shop with some freaky evil looking things in the window.
Good to see a bit of the city although it seemed to be just as over-populated and stinking as any other capital. The gig that night was good, the venue was a plush old theater converted into a club. Had a caiprinha in a bar afterwards where the barman had half a moustache and beard. We got driven back to our hotel by this wired dude who was the spitting image of cheech from the cheech and chong movies. He gave us some rather crude stickers of his band A Palo Seko which means straight up or a single shot if ordering a drink.
It was another early start the next day and a coach journey tainted with interrupted sleep and bumpy roads, amazing scenery though. Our promoters rep sylvia was concerned as the hotel we'd booked was apparently in the worst area in barcelona where all the hookers and drug dealers hang out. "Perfect" we thought. We checked it out and it wasn't all that bad, sure there were some fruity ladies and plenty of suspicious looking fellas but there was quite a community spirit about the place really.
Sylvia was an amazing rep, constantly trying to make sure everything was going well and to plan, she was just looking out for us. Playing razzmataz was a delight as always. Eamon, Andy and I stuck about after (for lack of better judgement) as we wanted to see Clinic (who were playing upstairs) and drink more booze. They were lush, it sounded awesome in that wee bar but then they are just a sorted band, the right sounds and the right playing. Id never seen them before and for some reason they reminded me of motorhead even though that makes no sense at all. The club filled up and soon there were 4000 people bopping around to indie disco. We left at 6ish and got a cab back to our hotel.
The Next day we drove to valencia for the final show of our spanish tour. We'd hired our own transport so we could have a lie in and get there on our own steam. It was a beautiful day and we drove right the way down the coast. We stopped at services and had some weird paella that included some unidentifiable meaty substance. Tom said it smelt like a giraffe's cage and Eamon bought a mini baseball bat adorned with cannabis leaves. At the venue the manager said he'd found us a motorised plane that was about the right size for a gerbil but he couldn't get the gerbil or the squirrels. We appreciated the effort though. Had a good one that night, the crowd were a little more up for it than at the other gigs, must be the sunshine.
It all caught up with me that day and i was ready to put my head down. I spoke to our driver more about surfin bichos outside. he told me that they hadn't released any music in 12 years. "Why did they reform" I said, "for the money" he replied. I went back to the hotel while the others were taken out by sylvia and co to the only place that was still serving booze, a hooker bar. The next day was a travel day, we flew at seven pm but had time to get some authentic valencian food down us which included more giraffey paella and some very garlicky prawns. Back in hove and i had just enough time to wash my clothes (by now a threat to humanity) and sleep before commencing our uk headline tour in Cardiff.
Instead of making regular updates i've been writing as i go with the intent of bombarding one and all with this essay detailing the first two weeks of recent brakes activities. Hold on to your braces, its a bumpy one!
First up was this mega tour with da killerz. These guyses were putting on quite a show, a real high spec operation. They even brought their own floor. The tour for us started in brussells at the ancienne belgique and we had a good one. We've always been a bit unlucky in brussels so it was a relief to have a incident free time there. Being a support band we dont really have time between souncheck and show to get up to anything like eating out or doing a bit of sightseeing. I was lucky enough to have a few friends who live in antwerp come to the show so i got taken out afterwards. We ended up in a quaint little aged bar that had tobacco stained books nailed to the walls and 10 inch records hanging from the rafters. I drank lots of Leffe, smoked many cigarettes and then wobbled back to our hotel which was further than i thought. I kept my eyes peeled as eamon had an incident in that area once that ended up with ex-merch man keith the gypsy being mugged for his phone. I got back safely and after a sleep we headed for Paris. A remarkably strange thing happened just before we left. The van was a bit stinking so i filled a box with anything that was rotting or detritus and carried it a few yards down the road to a big bin. Eamon lifted the lid up for me and when we peered inside there were two pipettes set lists staring back at us.
This was even stranger seeing as i was to see bobby cassette later that day in Paris.
It didn't take long to get there and as we were driving in the shit weather passed by and the sun shone down on the autumnal parisian streets. I was looking forward to playing the bataclan, i've got a few live albums that were recorded there so i was interested to see what the place was like. There was a little stretch of grass and water features in the middle of the boulevard and i appreciated the fact that the journalists asked us if we wanted to do the interviews there because of the nice weather. From there we could see the venue was painted all manor of bright colours. Back in our dressing room and the french had been as generous with their rider as usual with all sorts of cheeses and meats and everything we'd asked for on our rider. Unfortunately no promoter supplied us with the red jacketed squirrel walking a tightrope in a miniature circus big top accompanied by four circus trained mice doing tricks as requested......yet. We took the stage feeling happy and the crowd seemed up for it. When eamon revealed we were from brighton, uk there was an almighty cheer. It became obvious that lots of the audience were british. 80% in fact as i later learnt from kiilerz tour boss jeremy. This seemed bizzare but understandable for a band their size. As these shows have gone on we've come to realise that the killers are a band people are willing to go to great lengths to see and seemingly make a weekend of it. Their presence in every town is noticeable, you overhear people talking about the show, all the hotels are booked up with people going to the show. Our gig was good that night and afterwards we had a drink with bobby in the bar next door. They served entrecote and good red wine but played kasabian, editors and the rakes on the stereo for all the anglaise.
The next day we set off for the long drive to amsterdam. I made a start on a brakes tour film i'm making with imovie and my mobile phone. It might take me a while to edit and it's going to be pretty crude but hopefully it'll be done by christmas. We arrived a little late and we were instantly rushed into a few interviews. Somehow I ended up doing a couple on my own and they were most enjoyable, well informed and intelligent interviews. Questions you could give proper answers to and a few that took a bit of a think to answer. We sound-checked the main room at the paradiso and then just hung about for a bit before we played. We'd only ever played the smaller room there so we were looking forward to it. There wasn't much room on stage so i felt a bit boxed in when it came to the gig. Tom threw a pineapple into the crowd, as carefully as possible of course, you could do some damage with one of those, the crowd seemed to appreciate the free fruit. We played ok but it was nothing on paris. As we were trying to squeeze our gear off stage i suddenly got doused in beer. I looked up to see where this alcoholic shower had come from and saw that a lady was carelessly dangling her drink over the balcony and letting it spill down onto the stage, and more importantly onto the killers' guitar tech's workstation. I flung a few optical daggers her way but she was off on one having a good time and not really thinking. Trying to forget about the dousing i carried on loading off stage until a plastic cup then hit me on the head. My initial reaction to all this was that someone must have really not liked the show but i think that was just me being paranoid and that it was probably just accidentally kicked through the gaps in the railing or something. Anyway, it fucking pissed me off and i was in a shit mood until a lot later. We had a few booze treats backstage and then went off to find our hotel. Amsterdam can be a confusing place to get around and we got a bit lost but found it eventually and after convincing the receptionist that we were booked in to the establishment, those of us that still had a thirst headed out to find a suitable drinking spot. We ended up in a jazz bar that we'd been to before, a long, thin and smoky place with a band at one end and a bar at the other. It was quite late already but it seemed to stay open for a hell of a long time. Some of killers' crew showed up along with big nige, our old driver, now back-line tech for the arctic monkeys. What with eamon's bro steve being there too it was quite a party. Apologies to those who we'd arranged to meet there earlier, we just couldn't get our shit together in time. Ta for coming though.
We had a day off the next day and we engineered it so we could stay in amsterdam and travel by night on the ferry to harwich. It was a glorious autumnal day and amsterdam was gleaming. Amazingly we managed to find a restaurant that we'd been taken to on a previous visit to the city and there we had brunch and planned our day ahead. We couldn't resist a wee cycle around vendal park so we all hired some bikes and set off. It was lush bombing around looking at the birds and the trees. The park seems to be home to lots of tropical birds for some reason, i think they were parqueets or something like that, bright green with a mighty squawk. Saw a couple of herons too!
Tom had a couple of pre-rolls he'd purchased from a local smokery so we stopped for a wheeze. Maybe I'm getting old but that stuff is pure toxic trip weed, not for the faint minded and seeing as i was feeling slightly of that ilk given the previous night's reveling i went a bit funny after a couple of toots. Once back on the cycles i started not being able to see anything that wasn't moving the same speed as me, quite dangerous really. By this point we were lost, everything started looking the same and we must have been around the park six times before we worked out how to leave. We took the bikes back and wondered what to do with the remainder of our day. Conveniently enough the nearby cinema was showing Borat just before our designated leaving time. 80 minutes or so and a lot of laughing later we departed amsterdam and headed to the hook of holland for our boat back to england.
After a satisfying sleep at sea we headed to wolverhampton for the first of the 4 uk shows we'd be doing with brandon and co. It was saturday and the following day was another day off so on the way we checked into a weird little b'n'b at the foot of the peak district with the intent on spending our day off with a hike and a pub lunch. The place was called the dog and partridge and was fucking weird. The reception was adorned with hundreds of teddy bears all shapes and sizes and we seemed to be the only people there. We had a spot of lunch and then headed to wolverhampton. The gig was good at the civic hall, i had family present so i was a little nervous but we had a good one. I was interested to find out what the killers' uk audience would be like but they were as reserved and polite as the fans in europe, give or take a few obsessives who boo'd for the sake of it but thats to be expected really. We drove back to the dog and partridge after the show and had a sleep.
There'd been a weird two day flu bug going around the band, eamon had it first then me, then al and now it was tom's turn. He was too ill to come for a walk the next day and opted for some bed action instead whilst Alex stayed in wolverhampton with his girlfriend harriette. So it was eamon, tour manager andy, sound guy chris and myself who headed to Hartington for a day out. We bumped into a few keen hikers who gave us directions for a nice 3 mile walk.
It mainly followed the path of a picturesque river in a deep valley then headed up through some cow fields before coming downhill and back into the village. We had a nice roast and a few pints whilst watching some bizarre pagan morris dancing thing out the pub window. It was a good day off.
The rest of the uk shows were fresh. In manchester we went boozing at big hands and got quite merry. Then in hull we played a sweet gig in a 5000 capacity ice arena and then watched casino royale at the odeon next door. It was most entertaining. Glasgow was great of course. I got the chance to go home and wash my clothes which really needed to be done. It was nice to be home if just for a short while. We got the killers an Aerosmith cd and the second series of green wing as parting gifts. They were quite pleased with the cd but a little confused by the dvd, hopefully they'll find it funny. It was a good experience all in all, a good way to tighten up for our own tour and sound practice if we ever become as massive as they are. I'm not sure if their crowd would have all been into us but as long as a few people came away impressed then thats ok.
That night we got about an hour and a half sleep before we had to get up and off to the airport. We didn't want to miss the chance of supporting the killers in glasgow and we also didn't want to have to cancel our spanish tour so our flight to bilbao had been arranged to make sure both were possible. This meant flying from glasgow to amsterdam at 5 to 6 in the morning, then amsterdam to paris and finally paris to bilbao. It looked horrendous but we got through it, delirious with the exhaustion and quite excited about going to spain.
Andy got sacrificed at Charles de Gaulle for the sake of a kick drum pedal that they wouldn't allow us to take as hand luggage. He waited for the next flight and checked it in the hold. It seemed ridiculous seeing as we'd taken it on two flights already. When the rest of us got to Bilbao the exhaustion kicked in and we all started to trip out a bit. Luckily our hotel was posh as fuck and we weren't treated like peasants when we got there. A few hours and a much needed bath later and we headed to the venue for sound-check. The band we were supporting are called surfin bichos, an established spanish band who had been big in the 90's and had apparently re-formed recently. There was a bit of confusion between us a their crew at first, not helped by the language barrier and the fact that Andy was still in paris. All confusion was eventually smoothed out and we had a good first show. I was feeling sick with exhaustion afterwards so i sat at the back of the room and watched the main act.
A guy came up to me and said "next time do not say goodbye, you must play four more songs!", I took this as a compliment. Surfin Bichos sounded alright although a lot of their songs reminded me directly of other songs but just without any distinguishable melody. They seemed like quite dour individuals too, no smiles or jokes and hardly any inter band eye contact during the gig at all. We hit the hotel for a bit of kip but were back up at 5:30 am for departure to madrid.
A coach had been laid on to take both bands and their crew down to madrid and to barcelona the next day but when it came to it the headliners opted to travel separately which left just us, their crew and a film crew. The film crew must have been making a film about the band getting back together or something. They were filming everything all the time. I managed to sleep most the way to madrid which was a blessing as I'm usually really bad at sleeping on the move. Chris and I went for a stroll once we'd arrived, loaded out and checked in.
We went in search of this cable car thing called the teleferico that dangled above a park to the west of the city. Unfortunately when we got there it was seasonally closed, then it started to rain and before long we realised we were wandering through the equivalent of the west end of madrid, all theaters and tourist shops. Found a doll shop with some freaky evil looking things in the window.
Good to see a bit of the city although it seemed to be just as over-populated and stinking as any other capital. The gig that night was good, the venue was a plush old theater converted into a club. Had a caiprinha in a bar afterwards where the barman had half a moustache and beard. We got driven back to our hotel by this wired dude who was the spitting image of cheech from the cheech and chong movies. He gave us some rather crude stickers of his band A Palo Seko which means straight up or a single shot if ordering a drink.
It was another early start the next day and a coach journey tainted with interrupted sleep and bumpy roads, amazing scenery though. Our promoters rep sylvia was concerned as the hotel we'd booked was apparently in the worst area in barcelona where all the hookers and drug dealers hang out. "Perfect" we thought. We checked it out and it wasn't all that bad, sure there were some fruity ladies and plenty of suspicious looking fellas but there was quite a community spirit about the place really.
Sylvia was an amazing rep, constantly trying to make sure everything was going well and to plan, she was just looking out for us. Playing razzmataz was a delight as always. Eamon, Andy and I stuck about after (for lack of better judgement) as we wanted to see Clinic (who were playing upstairs) and drink more booze. They were lush, it sounded awesome in that wee bar but then they are just a sorted band, the right sounds and the right playing. Id never seen them before and for some reason they reminded me of motorhead even though that makes no sense at all. The club filled up and soon there were 4000 people bopping around to indie disco. We left at 6ish and got a cab back to our hotel.
The Next day we drove to valencia for the final show of our spanish tour. We'd hired our own transport so we could have a lie in and get there on our own steam. It was a beautiful day and we drove right the way down the coast. We stopped at services and had some weird paella that included some unidentifiable meaty substance. Tom said it smelt like a giraffe's cage and Eamon bought a mini baseball bat adorned with cannabis leaves. At the venue the manager said he'd found us a motorised plane that was about the right size for a gerbil but he couldn't get the gerbil or the squirrels. We appreciated the effort though. Had a good one that night, the crowd were a little more up for it than at the other gigs, must be the sunshine.
It all caught up with me that day and i was ready to put my head down. I spoke to our driver more about surfin bichos outside. he told me that they hadn't released any music in 12 years. "Why did they reform" I said, "for the money" he replied. I went back to the hotel while the others were taken out by sylvia and co to the only place that was still serving booze, a hooker bar. The next day was a travel day, we flew at seven pm but had time to get some authentic valencian food down us which included more giraffey paella and some very garlicky prawns. Back in hove and i had just enough time to wash my clothes (by now a threat to humanity) and sleep before commencing our uk headline tour in Cardiff.
Sunday 12 November 2006
Brakes Away!
So it begins. Brakes stand together, squinting into the future at the months worth of touring ahead of them. It'll be a month of firsts what with some of the biggest shows we've ever done taking place when we support the killers over the next week and a half. We'll be on telly for the first time too as well as heading to spain and, of course, doing our own tour around the uk. Hope to see some of you if not all of you along the way. Keep your eyes peeled here for updates, images and amusing anecdotes from the debauched world of brakes on tour. Wish us luck!
p.s thanks to all who came to our fopp instores and to all of you who've bought the new album thus far.
TA-RA
MArc
p.s thanks to all who came to our fopp instores and to all of you who've bought the new album thus far.
TA-RA
MArc
Sunday 5 November 2006
brakes in the cold
Last thursday i arrived at glasgow bus station and looked on the board for my coach to manchester, it wasn't there but then tom appeared and low and behold, we were getting the same coach. Not very surprising really, it was cheaper than the train. Megabus can be a sickening experience if you pick the wrong day but it was ok on this occasion. A woman got on the bus at preston with a big basket ful of cheap sarnies, crisps and chocolate bars. She was quite a vocal lady and as she was leaving the bus she popped her head up the stairs and said "does anyone want anything from me before i leave the bus?". I thought this was quite nice but all she got was some asshole saying "i dont want nowt, go away!"
We got to manchester early and hopped in a taxi to strangeways where we were booked to play the warehouse project formerly a boddingtons factory. It was some corporate affair for a certain vodka brand. We arrived just as the long blondes were setting up. It was freezing in there and tom and i had to wait around as the rest of the brakes party were running late.... no surprise. It was clear that we weren't going to be able to soundcheck at 4 as planned so we had to right it off as we had a date with mr marc riley over at the bbc which was far more important. Once the others had turned up we unloaded our gear and then headed to the studio.
We had to rush a bit when we got to the beeb as we were due on air at 7 but we got soundchecked ok and started with hold me in the river. Mr Riley was a top bloke, he even gave us a tenner to go to the bar with after the first track! We did on your side and cease and desist as well.
After all that we headed back to the warehouse. It was bloody cold in there and not too many people either, felt a bit lifeless to be honest. We went onstage following a dj set by m-peoples' mike pickering and played the best we could with numb hands. I dont think we'd paid much attention to what set we were going to do as it started hard and went a bit soft in the middle.
Its hard now we've got all these new songs, we actually have to think about it where as before it was just play as many songs as we can as fast as we can. We stuck around to watch the other bands and then headed to our accommodation which was bang in the center of town. Had a bit of trouble locating it at first and we were freezing walking around in a panic. Funnily enough it was just behind where we'd parked after all that. Slept for about 3 hours and then got up and off to the west country.
It was a beautiful drive down, all of worcestershire and gloucestershire in full autumnal glory.
Got to stroud and drove up the winding hill road to shortwood where our friends ben and bella were having a leaving party in a field. Ben and Bella and their four kids are starting a new life in new zealand. It was damn cold in that field, luckily i had my nordic army jumper that id purchased in oslo in february but even with that on the cold still got in. It was the toes that seemed to suffer the most and we had to keep dashing in the van to thaw out. Once they got the roaring bonfire alight everyone was much happier and all got merry.
There was lots of nitrous oxide going round which made proceedings quite interesting. We took the stage in all the clothes we had and played a blinding show. Everyone danced and bounded around and it was a joy to give the dudes a proper send off. They've been to quite a few of our gigs when we're down that neck of the woods and i'll miss having them around. Good luck you guys!!!!!!
It got quite late and we made a move to cuckoolad cottage where eamon grew up to sleep for a bit. Had a slight nightmare getting in due to a sticky key butwe got in eventually. Bit of tea and toast and off to bed it was. A fun couple of days had by all. Dropped tom at truck studios on the way back where hes doing some recording with restless list and then headed back to brighton. I think the sleep deprvation mixed with a sub zero climate has left me with some illness so the rest of my weekend is going to be spent sucking lemons and watching tv.
Adieu
We got to manchester early and hopped in a taxi to strangeways where we were booked to play the warehouse project formerly a boddingtons factory. It was some corporate affair for a certain vodka brand. We arrived just as the long blondes were setting up. It was freezing in there and tom and i had to wait around as the rest of the brakes party were running late.... no surprise. It was clear that we weren't going to be able to soundcheck at 4 as planned so we had to right it off as we had a date with mr marc riley over at the bbc which was far more important. Once the others had turned up we unloaded our gear and then headed to the studio.
We had to rush a bit when we got to the beeb as we were due on air at 7 but we got soundchecked ok and started with hold me in the river. Mr Riley was a top bloke, he even gave us a tenner to go to the bar with after the first track! We did on your side and cease and desist as well.
After all that we headed back to the warehouse. It was bloody cold in there and not too many people either, felt a bit lifeless to be honest. We went onstage following a dj set by m-peoples' mike pickering and played the best we could with numb hands. I dont think we'd paid much attention to what set we were going to do as it started hard and went a bit soft in the middle.
Its hard now we've got all these new songs, we actually have to think about it where as before it was just play as many songs as we can as fast as we can. We stuck around to watch the other bands and then headed to our accommodation which was bang in the center of town. Had a bit of trouble locating it at first and we were freezing walking around in a panic. Funnily enough it was just behind where we'd parked after all that. Slept for about 3 hours and then got up and off to the west country.
It was a beautiful drive down, all of worcestershire and gloucestershire in full autumnal glory.
Got to stroud and drove up the winding hill road to shortwood where our friends ben and bella were having a leaving party in a field. Ben and Bella and their four kids are starting a new life in new zealand. It was damn cold in that field, luckily i had my nordic army jumper that id purchased in oslo in february but even with that on the cold still got in. It was the toes that seemed to suffer the most and we had to keep dashing in the van to thaw out. Once they got the roaring bonfire alight everyone was much happier and all got merry.
There was lots of nitrous oxide going round which made proceedings quite interesting. We took the stage in all the clothes we had and played a blinding show. Everyone danced and bounded around and it was a joy to give the dudes a proper send off. They've been to quite a few of our gigs when we're down that neck of the woods and i'll miss having them around. Good luck you guys!!!!!!
It got quite late and we made a move to cuckoolad cottage where eamon grew up to sleep for a bit. Had a slight nightmare getting in due to a sticky key butwe got in eventually. Bit of tea and toast and off to bed it was. A fun couple of days had by all. Dropped tom at truck studios on the way back where hes doing some recording with restless list and then headed back to brighton. I think the sleep deprvation mixed with a sub zero climate has left me with some illness so the rest of my weekend is going to be spent sucking lemons and watching tv.
Adieu
Friday 20 October 2006
brakes up smoke
Wotcha!
The Luminaire show was a blast, always a pleasure to play there especially on Mr Andy Ingles birthday. The proprietor himself looked more than embarrassed when we wished him a happy birthday from the stage. Luckily for him we didn't play the song. We tried out a few previously unplayed live album tracks and they seemed to go down well. Last night brakes continued their assault of the london live music circuit by doing 2, yes 2 gigs in one night. We soundchecked at the borderline where we would be topping a bill also including the hours and the mescalitas as part of a new rough trade club night. Unfortunately we had to miss out on seeing both acts as we had to dash northwards for a 20 minute set at the islington accademy as part of the festival awards show. We bigged up truck and end of the road and played pretty well, the audience was a little subdued but i think we left an impression. After that we hotfooted it back to charing cross road and re-grouped backstage at the borderline. The Hours were still on and seemed to be having a good show, lots of people there to see them. We took the stage at about 9:30 and had a good show, sweaty, loud and at times painful. Did plenty of tracks off the new album which are all starting to sound good live. On the way home tom had a slash in a bush in brixton and disturbed a couple of canoodling fellas who fled shamefully into the night. This weekend we will be making preparations for our video shoot for 'hold me in the river' which we'll be directing and shooting ourselves. Its going to be a brakes classic.
Backstage at Trash having a cintilating conversation
brakes bus shot
On thursday we left brighton quite late and headed up to east london for a show at adventures in the beetroot fields at uber club, fabric. We were all feeling a bit tired out as we'd just spent the last 3 days shooting our video for hold me in the river. Its going to look pretty diy but we had loads of fun making it and i think that'll come across. It was certainly more fun than having to stand around for hours occasionally pretending to play your guitars whilst film types discuss lighting. Anyway... got to fabric and it was writhing with young trendy types. I could have sworn some of them were 14/15 but Eamon later reminded me that as you get older 18 year olds start to look younger and younger, how depressing. We took the stage about 11:30 and played pretty good. Tom and Eamon broke 3 strings between them which slightly slowed down proceedings (bloody guitarists) but the audience didn't seem to mind. Disco Party went down the best as usual but generally people were in quite a dancey mood which was nice. We left the venue about an hour later and headed back south. I got dropped off at gatwick so i could catch my 06:35 flight back to Glasgow, trust me it was a lot cheaper that way. Id never slept in an airport before, I imagined id just find a comfy bench and snooze off the time i had before my flight but to my astonishment every seat in that terminal was occupied. I tried to read but my eyes kept crossing so i resorted to lurking by a large seating area until someones flight came up and claiming their patch as my own. I got about an hours kip until i had to go check in. Good to be home if its only for 6 days until our next gig. Today me and the mrs donated some blood. Its my 3rd time since Brakes did our collective donation before 'give blood' came out. Its definately something more people should do, it doesn't hurt, its relatively quick and you get a free glass of orange squash and a tuc biccie afterwards.
The Luminaire show was a blast, always a pleasure to play there especially on Mr Andy Ingles birthday. The proprietor himself looked more than embarrassed when we wished him a happy birthday from the stage. Luckily for him we didn't play the song. We tried out a few previously unplayed live album tracks and they seemed to go down well. Last night brakes continued their assault of the london live music circuit by doing 2, yes 2 gigs in one night. We soundchecked at the borderline where we would be topping a bill also including the hours and the mescalitas as part of a new rough trade club night. Unfortunately we had to miss out on seeing both acts as we had to dash northwards for a 20 minute set at the islington accademy as part of the festival awards show. We bigged up truck and end of the road and played pretty well, the audience was a little subdued but i think we left an impression. After that we hotfooted it back to charing cross road and re-grouped backstage at the borderline. The Hours were still on and seemed to be having a good show, lots of people there to see them. We took the stage at about 9:30 and had a good show, sweaty, loud and at times painful. Did plenty of tracks off the new album which are all starting to sound good live. On the way home tom had a slash in a bush in brixton and disturbed a couple of canoodling fellas who fled shamefully into the night. This weekend we will be making preparations for our video shoot for 'hold me in the river' which we'll be directing and shooting ourselves. Its going to be a brakes classic.
Backstage at Trash having a cintilating conversation
brakes bus shot
On thursday we left brighton quite late and headed up to east london for a show at adventures in the beetroot fields at uber club, fabric. We were all feeling a bit tired out as we'd just spent the last 3 days shooting our video for hold me in the river. Its going to look pretty diy but we had loads of fun making it and i think that'll come across. It was certainly more fun than having to stand around for hours occasionally pretending to play your guitars whilst film types discuss lighting. Anyway... got to fabric and it was writhing with young trendy types. I could have sworn some of them were 14/15 but Eamon later reminded me that as you get older 18 year olds start to look younger and younger, how depressing. We took the stage about 11:30 and played pretty good. Tom and Eamon broke 3 strings between them which slightly slowed down proceedings (bloody guitarists) but the audience didn't seem to mind. Disco Party went down the best as usual but generally people were in quite a dancey mood which was nice. We left the venue about an hour later and headed back south. I got dropped off at gatwick so i could catch my 06:35 flight back to Glasgow, trust me it was a lot cheaper that way. Id never slept in an airport before, I imagined id just find a comfy bench and snooze off the time i had before my flight but to my astonishment every seat in that terminal was occupied. I tried to read but my eyes kept crossing so i resorted to lurking by a large seating area until someones flight came up and claiming their patch as my own. I got about an hours kip until i had to go check in. Good to be home if its only for 6 days until our next gig. Today me and the mrs donated some blood. Its my 3rd time since Brakes did our collective donation before 'give blood' came out. Its definately something more people should do, it doesn't hurt, its relatively quick and you get a free glass of orange squash and a tuc biccie afterwards.
Monday 16 October 2006
Beatific Brakes
Salutations Brakes Posseeeeeeeeeee!
Im sitting in the dressing room of the luminaire in kilburn awaiting stage time for what will be our first gig in a wee while. Tom and Alex have been on the road with the ESP and it sounds like they had a grand old time. October tends to be quite a debauched month for the Beatty family, what with my mothers birthday, my brothers' birthday and mine (funnily enough we were born on the same day 3 years apart) and to top it all off the same said brother got married only this weekend just gone. All the band were present at the reception and a good time was had by all. Congratulations Rich and Kirst!!! Needless to say im feeling a little tender and we haven't even started touring yet. In the meantime we've been putting the finishing touches to artwork and discussing new t-shirt designs. The new ones look pretty fresh and there's more of a variety this time so look out all you memorabilia nuts. Eamon and i did an interview with phil from the stool pigeon last week. He bought us a good few pints of ale to whet our tongues and we had a decent chat about pretty much everything. There should be a two page piece in next months article. Also did a 'brighton walk and talk' for music week where we took a journalist and a photographer around a few places in town. I was a bit useless when it got to talking about 'the brighton scene' seeing as i live in glasgow but it was still kinda fun. Plenty gigs coming up and we're doing a video soon!
Take care of yourselves... and each other
marc
Im sitting in the dressing room of the luminaire in kilburn awaiting stage time for what will be our first gig in a wee while. Tom and Alex have been on the road with the ESP and it sounds like they had a grand old time. October tends to be quite a debauched month for the Beatty family, what with my mothers birthday, my brothers' birthday and mine (funnily enough we were born on the same day 3 years apart) and to top it all off the same said brother got married only this weekend just gone. All the band were present at the reception and a good time was had by all. Congratulations Rich and Kirst!!! Needless to say im feeling a little tender and we haven't even started touring yet. In the meantime we've been putting the finishing touches to artwork and discussing new t-shirt designs. The new ones look pretty fresh and there's more of a variety this time so look out all you memorabilia nuts. Eamon and i did an interview with phil from the stool pigeon last week. He bought us a good few pints of ale to whet our tongues and we had a decent chat about pretty much everything. There should be a two page piece in next months article. Also did a 'brighton walk and talk' for music week where we took a journalist and a photographer around a few places in town. I was a bit useless when it got to talking about 'the brighton scene' seeing as i live in glasgow but it was still kinda fun. Plenty gigs coming up and we're doing a video soon!
Take care of yourselves... and each other
marc
Tuesday 19 September 2006
end of the road
Golly gosh, it has been a busy summer, and brakes had one more festival shaped hurdle to leap before they could close the book on 2006's festival season. We all trundled down the M27 towards Salisbury for the End of the Road festival at the beautiful Larmer Tree Gardens. Peacocks roamed freely, cider was drank and a good time was had by all. It was a perfect end to a successful summer's hard gigging for brakes. We had a healthy crowd watching our slot on the garden stage and we enjoyed the show tremendously. BSP took the stage after us and it was a joy to hear them play after so long. Various Brighton chums then joined forces at the delightful bimble inn where a nonsense jam ensued. Various things got knocked over and broken and i bowed out before the chance of being throttled by a wayward brass instrument came my way. Apologies to anyone who got seriously hurt.
Hats off to Sofia and Simon who did a great job organising what was one of the best festivals of the summer. Im hoping it will be the first of many end of the road festivals, i can honestly say there was nothing wrong with it at all.
Hats off to Sofia and Simon who did a great job organising what was one of the best festivals of the summer. Im hoping it will be the first of many end of the road festivals, i can honestly say there was nothing wrong with it at all.
Saturday 9 September 2006
Brakes-o-rama
Hey there you crazy kids!
Brakes have been back on the festival scene playing north, south, not east but also the west of this kingdom. We re-grouped in the first days of september up in Glasgow. Those punks at Jack Daniels got us to play a gig at the hard rockin' Cathouse club on Union Street and filmed it for a show due to be broadcast on the channel 4 channel some time soon. We did a posh interview too so you guyziz gonna get to see some brakes faces on your visual screens in the near future, holy moly! The show itself was a pumper, good crowd, good times. Thanks to all those dudes who came down from dundee especially to see us although next time do us a favour and leave your BSP t-shirts at home, as much as we worship the sea power Brakes are not them and its just kind of weird. I promise there will be an abundance of new brakes merchandise to acquire very soon.
The next day we were up early to fly to Dublin in time for our show at the Electric Picnic festival in Stradbally. It was a bumpy ride, high winds rocked that little plane around like it was made of paper, quite fun. We got picked up by a lovely man named Seamus who gave (stand in tour manager) Matt and I some good tips on giving up smoking. Matt was wearing patches and complained that they were making him hallucinate at night. Seamus drove us out of Dublin and through county Kildaire explaining a lot of interesting facts about horses along the way. We got to our hotel which seemed to be very golf orientated. Seemed like the kind of place where men go on holiday to play golf all the time whilst leaving their poor wives to soak in the executive spa facility. It definitely wasn't Brakes' bag that was for sure. Someone even looked at me funny when i asked for directions to the toilet. Turned out this wasn't our hotel, ours was nearer the festival thank god! We got to a place called Port Laois, found the hotel which looked a lot like the other one but without the golf crap and headed to the festival site for some fun.
It was a nice festival, everyone looked happy and non-threatening and there were kids and none of those stupid fairground rides or minging burger stalls. Had a little wander around, saw SFA who were great. Had another wander around and then went to see a bit of Belle and Sebastian who sounded lush despite being a bit quiet. I very randomly bumped into a girl who used to work in a cafe in Brighton where i used to eat brekkie every sunday. How we recognised each other was a mystery. I wanted to see Sparks but also didn't want to miss any of Yo LA Tengo so i got a good spot in their tent and waited it out. A girl asked my name, I told her it was Marc and then she introduced me to her friend as Paul, so i called her Sophie and that pleased her a bit but then she tried to steal my beer so i left. YLT were cool despite the sound in that tent being dreadful.
The next day it rained early but brightened up towards the afternoon. We were on later in the evening so once again i had a wander around. Saw Aberfeldy who were playing in the same tent as YLT and suffered equally to the bad sound and chaos of that stage. Riley the singer made a very witty joke about Razorlight's 'In the Morning' hit being about date-rape and enthused at how much they'd enjoyed their recent tour with James Bl(c)unt. Time passed slowly as ever before shows but eventually we took to the stage. Our tent was pretty massive and there was hardly a peep there to start with, it filled up gradually though and this pleased me as it meant that there was either very little or no people leaving the tent. We were a little confused at times but generally it was a good one. A good time in Ireland all round, only down side was that Matt had taken up the chuff again. Two days with Brakes and he was like a little smoking monkey.
After a boozy evening in Stoke Newington the next day, we went shopping for clothes in central London. None of us like shopping that much but it was surprisingly enjoyable. Tom was waiting in the queue for the till of Zara and the woman in front of him managed to cash up £1500 of clothes and she looked miserable as fuck. We were hoping she was a stylist or something and not some sick shopaholic weirdo.
That evening Eamon, Tom and myself went to sheppards bush to see Yo La Tengo....again. Well, im a fan..alright? They were most pleasing. All the songs off their new record sounded great to me and i haven't even got it yet (always a good sign) plus they did a few arthur lee covers and old fave stockholm syndrome as encores. Bumped into Becki from Da pipettes and Paul of maximo park. Glad to say they were both well.
Another day came and it was time to so some brakes work that didn't involve playing music.... a photoshoot! woohoo. We all posed, pouted and got our faces wiped by a swedish lady while the owner of the bar we were using as our set, Franco, laid on the beers. Prego! It was a bit stuffy down in that bar (Trish's of Greek Street) but the shots looked good and we got a variety of setups done with the help and genius of top camera dude Dean Chalkley.
We had a day off after that but then we got on a ferry and went to Bestival from where ive only just returned. Id never been before, well not to the festival but its location Robin Hill is where i used to play a great deal as a child. It was really nice to be back on the isle of wight. We took the back road so we could drive up the hill from where you can see all 4 corners of the isle, beautiful. Me and Eamon were staying the night so were erected our tents and then headed down into the arena. Did a quick interview for Radio 1 and then watched The FAll. They were superb, new band, sounded good. It was little chilly as nightfall came and the nerves were upon me so i felt a bit strange. Had a look at the tent and it wasn't as big as i thought it was going to be, didn't feel so nervous after that. Watched tilly and the wall who are quite entertaining with their tappy clappy folk. Our time to play came round, appropriately prompted by a cash number we took the stage and played an absolute blinder. The audience were singing along very loudly and were very appreciative. Luckily the whole thing was filmed by the Jack Daniels people as they were sponsoring the tent so we've got two really good gigs on film.
Scritti Politti did a great show after us, bit of a mind fuck as they were one of the bands my dad played constantly through the 80's. I love his voice.
We met with friends and made merry afterwards. There were people there who i wasn't expecting to see, pleasant surprises etc.. Before i knew it it was 5am, had to go to bed.
I woke at 9:30 and just had to get off the site. Everyone there was being real squeamish about the bogs. Maybe we're just a bunch of scummers (im pretty convinced of that actually) but these people were just being pathetic, like they'd never been to a festival before. There were as many showers as toilets in the artist camping and more of a queue for them too. The toilets were full of shit but they should have emptied them during the night. So I walked into the countryside until i feared dehydration, lack of orientation and a peril at the sun's mercy. I returned to find eamon had been woken by a boy called daniel who'd decided to have some fun with the horn of his fathers car at just past ten am. He was in a bad mood. We left shortly after this debacle and didn't look back.
Seems like a lot for 8 days huh? Good times for Brakes at the moment, album sounds fresh and i hope y'all going to like it as much as i do.
See you at End of the Road if you're coming.
Marc
Brakes have been back on the festival scene playing north, south, not east but also the west of this kingdom. We re-grouped in the first days of september up in Glasgow. Those punks at Jack Daniels got us to play a gig at the hard rockin' Cathouse club on Union Street and filmed it for a show due to be broadcast on the channel 4 channel some time soon. We did a posh interview too so you guyziz gonna get to see some brakes faces on your visual screens in the near future, holy moly! The show itself was a pumper, good crowd, good times. Thanks to all those dudes who came down from dundee especially to see us although next time do us a favour and leave your BSP t-shirts at home, as much as we worship the sea power Brakes are not them and its just kind of weird. I promise there will be an abundance of new brakes merchandise to acquire very soon.
The next day we were up early to fly to Dublin in time for our show at the Electric Picnic festival in Stradbally. It was a bumpy ride, high winds rocked that little plane around like it was made of paper, quite fun. We got picked up by a lovely man named Seamus who gave (stand in tour manager) Matt and I some good tips on giving up smoking. Matt was wearing patches and complained that they were making him hallucinate at night. Seamus drove us out of Dublin and through county Kildaire explaining a lot of interesting facts about horses along the way. We got to our hotel which seemed to be very golf orientated. Seemed like the kind of place where men go on holiday to play golf all the time whilst leaving their poor wives to soak in the executive spa facility. It definitely wasn't Brakes' bag that was for sure. Someone even looked at me funny when i asked for directions to the toilet. Turned out this wasn't our hotel, ours was nearer the festival thank god! We got to a place called Port Laois, found the hotel which looked a lot like the other one but without the golf crap and headed to the festival site for some fun.
It was a nice festival, everyone looked happy and non-threatening and there were kids and none of those stupid fairground rides or minging burger stalls. Had a little wander around, saw SFA who were great. Had another wander around and then went to see a bit of Belle and Sebastian who sounded lush despite being a bit quiet. I very randomly bumped into a girl who used to work in a cafe in Brighton where i used to eat brekkie every sunday. How we recognised each other was a mystery. I wanted to see Sparks but also didn't want to miss any of Yo LA Tengo so i got a good spot in their tent and waited it out. A girl asked my name, I told her it was Marc and then she introduced me to her friend as Paul, so i called her Sophie and that pleased her a bit but then she tried to steal my beer so i left. YLT were cool despite the sound in that tent being dreadful.
The next day it rained early but brightened up towards the afternoon. We were on later in the evening so once again i had a wander around. Saw Aberfeldy who were playing in the same tent as YLT and suffered equally to the bad sound and chaos of that stage. Riley the singer made a very witty joke about Razorlight's 'In the Morning' hit being about date-rape and enthused at how much they'd enjoyed their recent tour with James Bl(c)unt. Time passed slowly as ever before shows but eventually we took to the stage. Our tent was pretty massive and there was hardly a peep there to start with, it filled up gradually though and this pleased me as it meant that there was either very little or no people leaving the tent. We were a little confused at times but generally it was a good one. A good time in Ireland all round, only down side was that Matt had taken up the chuff again. Two days with Brakes and he was like a little smoking monkey.
After a boozy evening in Stoke Newington the next day, we went shopping for clothes in central London. None of us like shopping that much but it was surprisingly enjoyable. Tom was waiting in the queue for the till of Zara and the woman in front of him managed to cash up £1500 of clothes and she looked miserable as fuck. We were hoping she was a stylist or something and not some sick shopaholic weirdo.
That evening Eamon, Tom and myself went to sheppards bush to see Yo La Tengo....again. Well, im a fan..alright? They were most pleasing. All the songs off their new record sounded great to me and i haven't even got it yet (always a good sign) plus they did a few arthur lee covers and old fave stockholm syndrome as encores. Bumped into Becki from Da pipettes and Paul of maximo park. Glad to say they were both well.
Another day came and it was time to so some brakes work that didn't involve playing music.... a photoshoot! woohoo. We all posed, pouted and got our faces wiped by a swedish lady while the owner of the bar we were using as our set, Franco, laid on the beers. Prego! It was a bit stuffy down in that bar (Trish's of Greek Street) but the shots looked good and we got a variety of setups done with the help and genius of top camera dude Dean Chalkley.
We had a day off after that but then we got on a ferry and went to Bestival from where ive only just returned. Id never been before, well not to the festival but its location Robin Hill is where i used to play a great deal as a child. It was really nice to be back on the isle of wight. We took the back road so we could drive up the hill from where you can see all 4 corners of the isle, beautiful. Me and Eamon were staying the night so were erected our tents and then headed down into the arena. Did a quick interview for Radio 1 and then watched The FAll. They were superb, new band, sounded good. It was little chilly as nightfall came and the nerves were upon me so i felt a bit strange. Had a look at the tent and it wasn't as big as i thought it was going to be, didn't feel so nervous after that. Watched tilly and the wall who are quite entertaining with their tappy clappy folk. Our time to play came round, appropriately prompted by a cash number we took the stage and played an absolute blinder. The audience were singing along very loudly and were very appreciative. Luckily the whole thing was filmed by the Jack Daniels people as they were sponsoring the tent so we've got two really good gigs on film.
Scritti Politti did a great show after us, bit of a mind fuck as they were one of the bands my dad played constantly through the 80's. I love his voice.
We met with friends and made merry afterwards. There were people there who i wasn't expecting to see, pleasant surprises etc.. Before i knew it it was 5am, had to go to bed.
I woke at 9:30 and just had to get off the site. Everyone there was being real squeamish about the bogs. Maybe we're just a bunch of scummers (im pretty convinced of that actually) but these people were just being pathetic, like they'd never been to a festival before. There were as many showers as toilets in the artist camping and more of a queue for them too. The toilets were full of shit but they should have emptied them during the night. So I walked into the countryside until i feared dehydration, lack of orientation and a peril at the sun's mercy. I returned to find eamon had been woken by a boy called daniel who'd decided to have some fun with the horn of his fathers car at just past ten am. He was in a bad mood. We left shortly after this debacle and didn't look back.
Seems like a lot for 8 days huh? Good times for Brakes at the moment, album sounds fresh and i hope y'all going to like it as much as i do.
See you at End of the Road if you're coming.
Marc
Monday 14 August 2006
Electric Garden, Oya, Summer Sundae
Hi
The last few weeks saw brakes play 3 more of our summer bookings at festivals in europe and at home. First up was electric garden. None of us knew what to expect from this first time kent affair but it was pretty good. Had a nice drive there in the van, had to take a de-tour at one point for warnings of long delays. The kent countryside was all looking very picturesque until we saw a huge white crucifix engraved into a chalk down near Lenham. That scared us slightly so we made our way quickly to the site. Got there just in time to see Field Music who, despite some obviously crippling technical difficulties, sounded cool. It was very hot so we spent most of the hours before our performance lying around drinking cider. Gig was good. We were up against the charlatans and mystery jets so the tent wasn't packed but those who were present made us feel very welcome and seemed to have a good time.
I spent the next few days seeing family and friends before heading off to oslo very early on wednesday. Last time we'd been in oslo the whole country of norway was under about 20 inches of snow so it looked a lot different than i remembered. We went straight from the airport to the John Dee venue, the same place we'd played in february. Although variety in the places we play is a good thing we weren't too annoyed to be playing here again as john Dee is directly above a ten pin bowling rink. After dinner we got a couple of games in before heading upstairs for the show. second support cam from The Dears who brakes had played one of their first shows outside of brighton with at bath moles in mid 2003. How the tables turn. We had some technical difficulties which hindered our performance somewhat but it was still pretty cool. My friends vegard and elisabeth were there and had bought a lot of their mates so it was good to have the support. Headed out to a bar called mono afterwards, made me a little homesick as there is a mono in glagow too.
The next morning i put the telly on and realised there was no way we were going to be able to fly home as planned due to the terror alert in britains' airports. As glad i was that nothing on the scale of what the british intelligence claimed they'd prevented had actually happened, it was extremely frustrating to think of the disruption back home and the paranoia and anxiety the events would cause for years to come. I dont think i'll be too comfortable flying to america from now on. So in the meantime we got to spend an extra day in oslo and moved to a better hotel. It was ironic because a girl we'd met the previous night had begged us to stay an extra day to go to the outdoor part of the festival. Managed to meet up with some pipettes who had just about got out of the uk after hours of waiting around at stanstead. I headed down to the festival with them to catch Liars. They were lush as always, well maybe that's the wrong word to use but i fucking love them, their performances have no boundaries and rely on rhythms more than tunes. Plus they seem to repulse most of the people who see them which is always funny to see. After that i watched a bit of Nordic death metalers Enslaved who really didn't rock at all and then it rained loads and i got very wet and started feeling ill. I decamped to the hotel which wasn't far and had a kip, something i do quite a lot these days. Some of the schedules we've been keeping recently have been so tiring that you just have to sleep whenever you can or you'll fall over. I awoke later that evening and we all went out for more fun. The next day at the airport a norwegian news presenter and her cameraman got us to do an interview about the terror crisis. I think she was looking for a bit of chaos for her story but when she asked us if we were worried about going to the uk we just said "no, not really". In fact the flight was fine, no delays or problems at all.
The next day we left early again to drive to leicester for summer sundae. We were all quite chuffed to be playing the same stage as the proclaimers, in fact there's been talk of a proclaimers cover being thrown in the repertoire. We were playing in de montfort hall so we were safe from the turbulent weather. BBC radio 6 got us to do a quick session with phil jupitus, he's shaved his goatee off! Bumped into steve lamacq who scared me slightly by pointing out the uncanny simmilarity between the new razorlight album and the boomtown rats, or more poignantly, jonny borrel and bob geldof. Saw howling bells who played before us, quite like their sound. Our show was cool, healthy sized audience and a good reaction. Shortly after the gig i made my way to leicester station to travel back to glasgow. Unfortunately my train to nuneaton was canceled which threw my whole schedule out of whak. I went to see the station manager where there were two girls also travelling to glasgow in need of an alternative route. After standing in the station managers' office for about an hour he finally got his shit together and worked out that we could go to donnington, then newcastle and then the train company would pay for a taxi from newcastle to glasgow. It seemed a bit of trek but this is how i got home, walking through the door at about 2am, 7 hours after i should have left leicester. The glamour of it all!
The last few weeks saw brakes play 3 more of our summer bookings at festivals in europe and at home. First up was electric garden. None of us knew what to expect from this first time kent affair but it was pretty good. Had a nice drive there in the van, had to take a de-tour at one point for warnings of long delays. The kent countryside was all looking very picturesque until we saw a huge white crucifix engraved into a chalk down near Lenham. That scared us slightly so we made our way quickly to the site. Got there just in time to see Field Music who, despite some obviously crippling technical difficulties, sounded cool. It was very hot so we spent most of the hours before our performance lying around drinking cider. Gig was good. We were up against the charlatans and mystery jets so the tent wasn't packed but those who were present made us feel very welcome and seemed to have a good time.
I spent the next few days seeing family and friends before heading off to oslo very early on wednesday. Last time we'd been in oslo the whole country of norway was under about 20 inches of snow so it looked a lot different than i remembered. We went straight from the airport to the John Dee venue, the same place we'd played in february. Although variety in the places we play is a good thing we weren't too annoyed to be playing here again as john Dee is directly above a ten pin bowling rink. After dinner we got a couple of games in before heading upstairs for the show. second support cam from The Dears who brakes had played one of their first shows outside of brighton with at bath moles in mid 2003. How the tables turn. We had some technical difficulties which hindered our performance somewhat but it was still pretty cool. My friends vegard and elisabeth were there and had bought a lot of their mates so it was good to have the support. Headed out to a bar called mono afterwards, made me a little homesick as there is a mono in glagow too.
The next morning i put the telly on and realised there was no way we were going to be able to fly home as planned due to the terror alert in britains' airports. As glad i was that nothing on the scale of what the british intelligence claimed they'd prevented had actually happened, it was extremely frustrating to think of the disruption back home and the paranoia and anxiety the events would cause for years to come. I dont think i'll be too comfortable flying to america from now on. So in the meantime we got to spend an extra day in oslo and moved to a better hotel. It was ironic because a girl we'd met the previous night had begged us to stay an extra day to go to the outdoor part of the festival. Managed to meet up with some pipettes who had just about got out of the uk after hours of waiting around at stanstead. I headed down to the festival with them to catch Liars. They were lush as always, well maybe that's the wrong word to use but i fucking love them, their performances have no boundaries and rely on rhythms more than tunes. Plus they seem to repulse most of the people who see them which is always funny to see. After that i watched a bit of Nordic death metalers Enslaved who really didn't rock at all and then it rained loads and i got very wet and started feeling ill. I decamped to the hotel which wasn't far and had a kip, something i do quite a lot these days. Some of the schedules we've been keeping recently have been so tiring that you just have to sleep whenever you can or you'll fall over. I awoke later that evening and we all went out for more fun. The next day at the airport a norwegian news presenter and her cameraman got us to do an interview about the terror crisis. I think she was looking for a bit of chaos for her story but when she asked us if we were worried about going to the uk we just said "no, not really". In fact the flight was fine, no delays or problems at all.
The next day we left early again to drive to leicester for summer sundae. We were all quite chuffed to be playing the same stage as the proclaimers, in fact there's been talk of a proclaimers cover being thrown in the repertoire. We were playing in de montfort hall so we were safe from the turbulent weather. BBC radio 6 got us to do a quick session with phil jupitus, he's shaved his goatee off! Bumped into steve lamacq who scared me slightly by pointing out the uncanny simmilarity between the new razorlight album and the boomtown rats, or more poignantly, jonny borrel and bob geldof. Saw howling bells who played before us, quite like their sound. Our show was cool, healthy sized audience and a good reaction. Shortly after the gig i made my way to leicester station to travel back to glasgow. Unfortunately my train to nuneaton was canceled which threw my whole schedule out of whak. I went to see the station manager where there were two girls also travelling to glasgow in need of an alternative route. After standing in the station managers' office for about an hour he finally got his shit together and worked out that we could go to donnington, then newcastle and then the train company would pay for a taxi from newcastle to glasgow. It seemed a bit of trek but this is how i got home, walking through the door at about 2am, 7 hours after i should have left leicester. The glamour of it all!
Friday 4 August 2006
Lisbon
Well.. here we are in portugal!
I arrived slightly later than the rest of the troops cos... well it´d take too long to explain but lets just say i thoroughly enjoyed my free bloody mary on b.a. Its fucking hot here. I got to the hotel and looked out the window to see that we are by the sea. So i headed out armed with my camera and smothered in sun cream. About 5 minutes after id left the cool confines of our hotel i started sweating and all the suncream got in my eyes and really hurt! Then i realised my slr was out of battery so i couldn't work out any shutter speeds, bugga. Off to the site now, its 3 hours down the coast apparently so it should be a good drive.
Ta-ra
I arrived slightly later than the rest of the troops cos... well it´d take too long to explain but lets just say i thoroughly enjoyed my free bloody mary on b.a. Its fucking hot here. I got to the hotel and looked out the window to see that we are by the sea. So i headed out armed with my camera and smothered in sun cream. About 5 minutes after id left the cool confines of our hotel i started sweating and all the suncream got in my eyes and really hurt! Then i realised my slr was out of battery so i couldn't work out any shutter speeds, bugga. Off to the site now, its 3 hours down the coast apparently so it should be a good drive.
Ta-ra
Tuesday 25 July 2006
studio diary
woke up at 1 today, first good sleep since i don't know when. came down to find a string section hard at work in the lounge. the studio is adjacent to our wee house thingy we shall be living in for the next two weeks, and therefore leads, microphones and whatnot seem to trail in and out of doorways randomly. marc and eamon made what will probably be the first of many trips to the supermarket earlier this afternoon, puchasing wine and fish, while our stringheads, anna, aby and rob got some lush string parts down on a couple of brand newie's, expertly arranged by al....nice. eamon's just started vocals........all's well. curry tonight, hopefully.
more when it happens.
tom
Got woken up by a bloody peacock this morning! I didn't know they could make such a horrible noise. This end of the road festy we're doing has peacocks, i hope they're not as noisy as this one. As Tom said, good start yesterday, strings sound great, eamons singing better with his feet on british soil, despite the heat. One thing i miss about the states... fucking air conditioning. Truck was splendid as always, we had a real family vibe going on with my bro and his wife to be and my girlfriend and lots of friends all present. A merry time was had by all. Unforetunately our sound engineer Joey Knuckles had to go to hospital in the middle of the saturday night with some lung trouble. He's resting up now but we'll sure miss him.
Watford? Need i say more, those who were present know what went down. It was one of the funnest and sweatiest gigs brakes have done ever. Kind of like a musical sauna. So hot it makes you a bit woozy. Thanks to everyone involved.
Brighton horn legend Phil Sumner is rearing his horrible face today for some blowing.
Speak to ya'll soon
Marc
more when it happens.
tom
Got woken up by a bloody peacock this morning! I didn't know they could make such a horrible noise. This end of the road festy we're doing has peacocks, i hope they're not as noisy as this one. As Tom said, good start yesterday, strings sound great, eamons singing better with his feet on british soil, despite the heat. One thing i miss about the states... fucking air conditioning. Truck was splendid as always, we had a real family vibe going on with my bro and his wife to be and my girlfriend and lots of friends all present. A merry time was had by all. Unforetunately our sound engineer Joey Knuckles had to go to hospital in the middle of the saturday night with some lung trouble. He's resting up now but we'll sure miss him.
Watford? Need i say more, those who were present know what went down. It was one of the funnest and sweatiest gigs brakes have done ever. Kind of like a musical sauna. So hot it makes you a bit woozy. Thanks to everyone involved.
Brighton horn legend Phil Sumner is rearing his horrible face today for some blowing.
Speak to ya'll soon
Marc
Tuesday 18 July 2006
Spain and Belgium
Hola!
Tis the morning after my return home from one of Brakes' most grueling yet satisfying euro jaunts to date. Last friday (which now seems like an eternity ago) we set off from brighton at 5am to get a 7:30 flight from gatwick. Our driver Michael who usually picks us up in a practical people carrier was today driving a disco bus suitable for tasteless stag do's and the like. All strobes and lurid coloured leather seats. It had a dvd player with the NOW 2006 dvd in it. We all zoned out to such pop delights as Girls Aloud, Kylie Minogue and that awful boy band who formed from the ashes of Blazin Squad whose name i cant remember. It all left us feeling rather sick.
At Madrid airport we were met by our chaparone for the day from the wonderful sinnamon records of spain who i cant praise enough. They were the guys who had set up this whole two tier festival. It seemed like quite an operation to pull off too so extra hats raised to them for that. We drove to our hotel, dropped off our stuff and then made our way to the festival site which was about an hour away. It was hot and dusty there, seemed like some sort of demolition site or something.
The artist area was quite plush. A huge marquee being continuously pumped with cool air was divided into roughly 40 separate rooms varying in size depending on the band. Our stage time wasn't until 2am so we had a lot of time to kill. We did a few interviews and then burned time by having a little sing song in our room. Several Proclaimers songs were attempted, half of Wreckless Eric's whole wide world and then the whole Tenderfoot album in simplified skiffle form. Much fun. The singer from The Long Blondes later remarked how our singing had eased her nerves. There was also a free bar which remained surprisingly empty for most of the night.
Caught The Dandy Warhols' set which was cool. Saw a bit of New Order who are these days sounding so jaded that they have to shout 'C'mon!' and 'Here we gOOOO!" in between lines to rally up the crowd. Primal Scream sounded pretty fresh, i hadn't seen them for six years but it was all good, especially the songs off Xtrmntr. Got to meet Mani briefly before their set too which was nice, he's a leathery faced fellow. Saw a slither of the aforementioned Long Blondes who unfortunately had some sonic difficulties but did their best all the same. Then it fell to us and we were knackered but up for it and we played a blinder. Courtney Taylor of The Dandy Warhols politely filmed half our set for us and a good job he did too. We got to the end of our set and realised we still had 15 minutes to fill so we had to drop in a couple of slightly under rehearsed newies but with a little concentration and a bit of luck we pulled through it. We were most chuffed when we left the stage.
What happened next was a bit of a black out for me as my brain had pretty much shut down, we didn't get any sleep though, i know that and everyone was in a bit of a state when we got to the airport. The flight to Barcelona was pretty much full of stinking bands and their crew. I found it quite amusing. It was quite an old plane and it made funny noises which didn't put my nerves in a good place. Eamon kept speculating how if the plane had gone down it would have cemented us a place in rock history just like buddy holly and lynyrd skynyrd, we all told him to be quiet.
It was supposed to be cooler in Barcelona but it didn't feel like it. All the summercase related bands that were on the flight got on the same coach too and we made our way into barcelona. We had to endure listening to The Feeling do a spat of phone interviews but luckily we were first to get off as we had a nicer hotel, hahahaaha. It was bloody lush, right next to the festival and very near the sea. I had a shower and headed out with joe and steve to get some tapas. The tapas was good, so good that i then had to go back to the hotel and sleep for 4 hours. It was still relatively early in the day so it didn't matter and besides, i don't think id be alive now if i hadn't got that kip then. Once awake, Eamon and i did an interview in the hotel bar where we were interrupted by a somewhat merry bobby gillespie who stumbled into our table all limbs-a-flailing before realising he didn't know who we were and moving on. He looked like he's been head-butted from the gash on the bridge of his nose.
The layout of the barcelona leg of summercase was very similar to madrid except it was on concrete. I'm assuming the site was built and used as part of the olympics that were held there 14 years ago. The backstage free bar seemed a bit more popular today and several acts were getting thoroughly stuck in already. Catering was of the local variety and i couldn't help but sample both the salted cod carpaccio and the chicken in prunes. We had some friends out woth us as it seemed everyone did, i guess barcelona is a little more appealing to visit than madrid, but it all lead to a much more relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
We played another good show and revised our set to include the new songs that we were more confident to play after madrid. Both nights we'd cleverly left disco party to very near the end, as that song is what most people have heard if they've heard anything by us. Sure enough people were shouting out for it for almost the entire set but we made them wait. Back at the artist area things had gone from friendly and relaxed to deranged, slightly violent and generally quite volatile. It was time to leave so we headed back to the hotel where i wasn't going to sleep again. It was a shame having been booked into some of the nicest hotels id ever been in and not get a good night's sleep there. Eamon showed up just before i was in danger of nodding off and we babbled at each other for a while before heading down for our 7am lobby call. But no-one was there except bobby gillespie again who looked like he'd psychologically transgressed into a simpler life form and was trying to escape from his own body through his mouth. So eamon and i who were giggling manically through sleep deprivation decided to play frisbee outside. It was a good game and many wandering people who were departing the festival got involved along the way. Everyone else was very late but we didn't mind. The fact that we might miss our flight to brussels seemed hilarious.
An hour later we were running through the airport to get to a desk where we could check in and make it to the gate on time. Steve pulled some tour managing skills out of the hat and came back with all the tags we needed in his hand. So the panic was over and we were leaving spain to go to belgium. It didn't seem right. Everything always goes wrong in belgium for brakes. At least the weather was good, it was easily as hot as barcelona and not a cloud in the sky.
The entire production management, catering and even our dressing room for Dour Festival was in a school, which was a bit odd. Our room which we were sharing with two gallants had a poster in it that said 'i like babies' with pictures of lots of odd looking babies. It also had a sink in a cupboard which i must confess wasn't only used for washing our hands. I was feeling pretty weird at this point and when i got cut off from my girlfriend on the phone i smashed it on the floor. I needed to calm down so i had a few tokes on a bong tom had made form an evian bottle.
We did a bizzare radio session that felt more like an interrogation. Eamon introduced 'if i should die' as a song about love and death to which the dj responded by telling us someone had died at the festival the previous day by jumping off a cliff.... we didn't really know what to say. Onto the festival site we drove and it was even dustier than madrid. There seemed to be a lot of crew with not much to do all topless and smoking joints. Our tent was warm, too warm so i asked steve if i could have one of the industrial fans that were lying around to cool me off during our performance. Being the mega TM that he is this was sorted out very quickly. It was a career milestone for me, i never thought the day would come when id have my own fan on stage. I shed a tear of joy. We did the same set we'd done in barcelona and given that we were almost dead i thought we played bloody well. There seemed to be a few people who new who we were and even a big guy in a brakes shirt. It was a sparse audience but having that small cluster of singing enthusiasts made all the difference.
I had to get some peace after all that so after a brief return to school and an argument with some women who wanted to chuck us out of our dressing room, Joe and I went to the hotel. We were unaware all day of where our hotel was and its a good job too because it was in bloody france! It sounded more ridiculous than it was as it was merely a 45 minute drive but it was just a bit of a shock to end up across the border in the small hub town of valenciennes. We had a nice meal though and a good sleep followed before heading back to brussells airport and finally home yesterday morning.
All in all a good start to brakes' euro festival season, see you at truckfest if you're coming.
Marc
Tis the morning after my return home from one of Brakes' most grueling yet satisfying euro jaunts to date. Last friday (which now seems like an eternity ago) we set off from brighton at 5am to get a 7:30 flight from gatwick. Our driver Michael who usually picks us up in a practical people carrier was today driving a disco bus suitable for tasteless stag do's and the like. All strobes and lurid coloured leather seats. It had a dvd player with the NOW 2006 dvd in it. We all zoned out to such pop delights as Girls Aloud, Kylie Minogue and that awful boy band who formed from the ashes of Blazin Squad whose name i cant remember. It all left us feeling rather sick.
At Madrid airport we were met by our chaparone for the day from the wonderful sinnamon records of spain who i cant praise enough. They were the guys who had set up this whole two tier festival. It seemed like quite an operation to pull off too so extra hats raised to them for that. We drove to our hotel, dropped off our stuff and then made our way to the festival site which was about an hour away. It was hot and dusty there, seemed like some sort of demolition site or something.
The artist area was quite plush. A huge marquee being continuously pumped with cool air was divided into roughly 40 separate rooms varying in size depending on the band. Our stage time wasn't until 2am so we had a lot of time to kill. We did a few interviews and then burned time by having a little sing song in our room. Several Proclaimers songs were attempted, half of Wreckless Eric's whole wide world and then the whole Tenderfoot album in simplified skiffle form. Much fun. The singer from The Long Blondes later remarked how our singing had eased her nerves. There was also a free bar which remained surprisingly empty for most of the night.
Caught The Dandy Warhols' set which was cool. Saw a bit of New Order who are these days sounding so jaded that they have to shout 'C'mon!' and 'Here we gOOOO!" in between lines to rally up the crowd. Primal Scream sounded pretty fresh, i hadn't seen them for six years but it was all good, especially the songs off Xtrmntr. Got to meet Mani briefly before their set too which was nice, he's a leathery faced fellow. Saw a slither of the aforementioned Long Blondes who unfortunately had some sonic difficulties but did their best all the same. Then it fell to us and we were knackered but up for it and we played a blinder. Courtney Taylor of The Dandy Warhols politely filmed half our set for us and a good job he did too. We got to the end of our set and realised we still had 15 minutes to fill so we had to drop in a couple of slightly under rehearsed newies but with a little concentration and a bit of luck we pulled through it. We were most chuffed when we left the stage.
What happened next was a bit of a black out for me as my brain had pretty much shut down, we didn't get any sleep though, i know that and everyone was in a bit of a state when we got to the airport. The flight to Barcelona was pretty much full of stinking bands and their crew. I found it quite amusing. It was quite an old plane and it made funny noises which didn't put my nerves in a good place. Eamon kept speculating how if the plane had gone down it would have cemented us a place in rock history just like buddy holly and lynyrd skynyrd, we all told him to be quiet.
It was supposed to be cooler in Barcelona but it didn't feel like it. All the summercase related bands that were on the flight got on the same coach too and we made our way into barcelona. We had to endure listening to The Feeling do a spat of phone interviews but luckily we were first to get off as we had a nicer hotel, hahahaaha. It was bloody lush, right next to the festival and very near the sea. I had a shower and headed out with joe and steve to get some tapas. The tapas was good, so good that i then had to go back to the hotel and sleep for 4 hours. It was still relatively early in the day so it didn't matter and besides, i don't think id be alive now if i hadn't got that kip then. Once awake, Eamon and i did an interview in the hotel bar where we were interrupted by a somewhat merry bobby gillespie who stumbled into our table all limbs-a-flailing before realising he didn't know who we were and moving on. He looked like he's been head-butted from the gash on the bridge of his nose.
The layout of the barcelona leg of summercase was very similar to madrid except it was on concrete. I'm assuming the site was built and used as part of the olympics that were held there 14 years ago. The backstage free bar seemed a bit more popular today and several acts were getting thoroughly stuck in already. Catering was of the local variety and i couldn't help but sample both the salted cod carpaccio and the chicken in prunes. We had some friends out woth us as it seemed everyone did, i guess barcelona is a little more appealing to visit than madrid, but it all lead to a much more relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
We played another good show and revised our set to include the new songs that we were more confident to play after madrid. Both nights we'd cleverly left disco party to very near the end, as that song is what most people have heard if they've heard anything by us. Sure enough people were shouting out for it for almost the entire set but we made them wait. Back at the artist area things had gone from friendly and relaxed to deranged, slightly violent and generally quite volatile. It was time to leave so we headed back to the hotel where i wasn't going to sleep again. It was a shame having been booked into some of the nicest hotels id ever been in and not get a good night's sleep there. Eamon showed up just before i was in danger of nodding off and we babbled at each other for a while before heading down for our 7am lobby call. But no-one was there except bobby gillespie again who looked like he'd psychologically transgressed into a simpler life form and was trying to escape from his own body through his mouth. So eamon and i who were giggling manically through sleep deprivation decided to play frisbee outside. It was a good game and many wandering people who were departing the festival got involved along the way. Everyone else was very late but we didn't mind. The fact that we might miss our flight to brussels seemed hilarious.
An hour later we were running through the airport to get to a desk where we could check in and make it to the gate on time. Steve pulled some tour managing skills out of the hat and came back with all the tags we needed in his hand. So the panic was over and we were leaving spain to go to belgium. It didn't seem right. Everything always goes wrong in belgium for brakes. At least the weather was good, it was easily as hot as barcelona and not a cloud in the sky.
The entire production management, catering and even our dressing room for Dour Festival was in a school, which was a bit odd. Our room which we were sharing with two gallants had a poster in it that said 'i like babies' with pictures of lots of odd looking babies. It also had a sink in a cupboard which i must confess wasn't only used for washing our hands. I was feeling pretty weird at this point and when i got cut off from my girlfriend on the phone i smashed it on the floor. I needed to calm down so i had a few tokes on a bong tom had made form an evian bottle.
We did a bizzare radio session that felt more like an interrogation. Eamon introduced 'if i should die' as a song about love and death to which the dj responded by telling us someone had died at the festival the previous day by jumping off a cliff.... we didn't really know what to say. Onto the festival site we drove and it was even dustier than madrid. There seemed to be a lot of crew with not much to do all topless and smoking joints. Our tent was warm, too warm so i asked steve if i could have one of the industrial fans that were lying around to cool me off during our performance. Being the mega TM that he is this was sorted out very quickly. It was a career milestone for me, i never thought the day would come when id have my own fan on stage. I shed a tear of joy. We did the same set we'd done in barcelona and given that we were almost dead i thought we played bloody well. There seemed to be a few people who new who we were and even a big guy in a brakes shirt. It was a sparse audience but having that small cluster of singing enthusiasts made all the difference.
I had to get some peace after all that so after a brief return to school and an argument with some women who wanted to chuck us out of our dressing room, Joe and I went to the hotel. We were unaware all day of where our hotel was and its a good job too because it was in bloody france! It sounded more ridiculous than it was as it was merely a 45 minute drive but it was just a bit of a shock to end up across the border in the small hub town of valenciennes. We had a nice meal though and a good sleep followed before heading back to brussells airport and finally home yesterday morning.
All in all a good start to brakes' euro festival season, see you at truckfest if you're coming.
Marc
Monday 10 July 2006
the last month in brakes world
Word up bitches!
So its been a while and brakes have been to all sorts of places and done all sorts of things. In the second week of june we flew out to nashville to do some recording with mr stuart sykes in a studio called house of david. I was especially excited to be recording here as its where my favourite band yo la tengo recorded one of their albums.
It was hot in nashville, super hot, so we took 3 or 4 days before work commenced to climatise. Life is very slow paced out there so we didn't actually get up to that much. We did a few radio things and an instore at a fabulous record shop called Grimey's. It was actually run by someone called Grimey! Recording got off to a good start and stuart got us sounding super pumped. Im not going to reveal much else about the session, the proof is in the pudding as they say. We did a gig a couple of days before we left in a venue beneath Grimey's supporting Cerys Matthews of Catatonia fame who lives out there and is married to our rough trade contact out there. Having been recording totally new songs for two weeks it felt a little strange to be playing all the old ones. We were kind of knackered and drunk but i think we went down well.
We left nashville and had a very comfortable flight(s) back to heathrow. Home wasn't totally in sight though. We stayed the night in a nearby sheraton (brakes' least favourite hotel chain) and then got a flight to paris where we were due to play at the furia festival. The jetlag was sickening, we were all short tempered, hungover and close to tears. Furia was a bit of a wash out, mud and rain was the theme and we were told that people were having trouble getting to our stage as the path had tuned into a mudslide. Eventually we took the stage and started well with new song 'hold me in the river', working title 'kegchug'. Things went quickly wrong though. Tom's guitar snapped somehow and.... well lets just say it wasn't our best. It was a shame because had the weather been better and our minds sharper then it would have been a corker. I was in a foul mood so i went back to our novotel but the others stayed and watched the ex and art brut, reports were of a high standard. Getting up was a bit of a challenge the next day but we finally flew home to lick our wounds and take a much needed brakes break.
A few weeks went by and then we re-grouped in Glasgow for a rehearsal prior to our appearance at t in the park sunday just gone. Rehearsal was good and we worked up a couple of the newies too. The weather wasn't too good up there either but not as bad as paris. The only band i saw the entire set of on the saturday night was Sigur Ros who were comletely amazing. It was a cold nights' sleep in my newly purchased tent but luckily the sun came out the next day and we all had a jolly good time. Our gig was truly exhilerating and much fun. You can always rely on a scottish audience to get you rocking. It was high spirits all round after so i went backstage and got drunk on free beer in the setting sun.
Now we've a few days off before flying to spain for a couple of festivals out there, then the festival season will really have gotten going. Plan is to finish off the album in the uk just after truckfest, hopefully we'll have it done before the summer is through.
See you when i see you unless i see you when i see you.
MArc
So its been a while and brakes have been to all sorts of places and done all sorts of things. In the second week of june we flew out to nashville to do some recording with mr stuart sykes in a studio called house of david. I was especially excited to be recording here as its where my favourite band yo la tengo recorded one of their albums.
It was hot in nashville, super hot, so we took 3 or 4 days before work commenced to climatise. Life is very slow paced out there so we didn't actually get up to that much. We did a few radio things and an instore at a fabulous record shop called Grimey's. It was actually run by someone called Grimey! Recording got off to a good start and stuart got us sounding super pumped. Im not going to reveal much else about the session, the proof is in the pudding as they say. We did a gig a couple of days before we left in a venue beneath Grimey's supporting Cerys Matthews of Catatonia fame who lives out there and is married to our rough trade contact out there. Having been recording totally new songs for two weeks it felt a little strange to be playing all the old ones. We were kind of knackered and drunk but i think we went down well.
We left nashville and had a very comfortable flight(s) back to heathrow. Home wasn't totally in sight though. We stayed the night in a nearby sheraton (brakes' least favourite hotel chain) and then got a flight to paris where we were due to play at the furia festival. The jetlag was sickening, we were all short tempered, hungover and close to tears. Furia was a bit of a wash out, mud and rain was the theme and we were told that people were having trouble getting to our stage as the path had tuned into a mudslide. Eventually we took the stage and started well with new song 'hold me in the river', working title 'kegchug'. Things went quickly wrong though. Tom's guitar snapped somehow and.... well lets just say it wasn't our best. It was a shame because had the weather been better and our minds sharper then it would have been a corker. I was in a foul mood so i went back to our novotel but the others stayed and watched the ex and art brut, reports were of a high standard. Getting up was a bit of a challenge the next day but we finally flew home to lick our wounds and take a much needed brakes break.
A few weeks went by and then we re-grouped in Glasgow for a rehearsal prior to our appearance at t in the park sunday just gone. Rehearsal was good and we worked up a couple of the newies too. The weather wasn't too good up there either but not as bad as paris. The only band i saw the entire set of on the saturday night was Sigur Ros who were comletely amazing. It was a cold nights' sleep in my newly purchased tent but luckily the sun came out the next day and we all had a jolly good time. Our gig was truly exhilerating and much fun. You can always rely on a scottish audience to get you rocking. It was high spirits all round after so i went backstage and got drunk on free beer in the setting sun.
Now we've a few days off before flying to spain for a couple of festivals out there, then the festival season will really have gotten going. Plan is to finish off the album in the uk just after truckfest, hopefully we'll have it done before the summer is through.
See you when i see you unless i see you when i see you.
MArc
Saturday 1 July 2006
Almost done
The album is nearly finished, just making a few fine tunings and adding the odd few bits and bobs here and there. Its been good and we've got (in my opinion) a pretty sweet album on the go here. We were going a little bit crazy a few days ago, just forgetting what day it was and what the hell we were doing. Things have been a little more clear since we've started mixing thankfully.
The owner of rough trade shops, nigel came round the other day with his son and his son's mate to have a listen. Its nice to meet kids who are into the band, i think our songs are quite easy for younguns to get into. Apparently my sister in law uses porcupine or pineapple to explain phonetics to her primary school kids. Just the verses of course. It was the least we could do for nigel after they so kindly made our album their top record of the year in 05. Here's hoping for two in a row! When it comes out (im not sure when yet) you all HAVE to buy or order it from the good people at rough trade shops. I'll put a link up to their site on ours soon. Id further like to clarify for everyone that the shop has no affiliation with our label of the same name, so there's no fixing involved. The list is based on sales and returns and also a staff vote.
Its also a bit cooler this week, a blessing really as we can mix without the noisy fans on. Stuart (sycho) Sykes is doing us proud. Starting to think about artwork etc... any ideas would be warmly received, but not necessarily used.
Best get back to work
No peacocks to report this morning either
Marc
The owner of rough trade shops, nigel came round the other day with his son and his son's mate to have a listen. Its nice to meet kids who are into the band, i think our songs are quite easy for younguns to get into. Apparently my sister in law uses porcupine or pineapple to explain phonetics to her primary school kids. Just the verses of course. It was the least we could do for nigel after they so kindly made our album their top record of the year in 05. Here's hoping for two in a row! When it comes out (im not sure when yet) you all HAVE to buy or order it from the good people at rough trade shops. I'll put a link up to their site on ours soon. Id further like to clarify for everyone that the shop has no affiliation with our label of the same name, so there's no fixing involved. The list is based on sales and returns and also a staff vote.
Its also a bit cooler this week, a blessing really as we can mix without the noisy fans on. Stuart (sycho) Sykes is doing us proud. Starting to think about artwork etc... any ideas would be warmly received, but not necessarily used.
Best get back to work
No peacocks to report this morning either
Marc
Thursday 1 June 2006
Brakes Summer Party
Hi there
I know its been a while but i thought id try and avoid doing this for a bit. Didnt want you all to think i fancied you or something.
Anyway.... Last weekend saw brakes hitting the hi fi north and south festivals in newcastle and winchester respectively. It was windy up in northumberland, the site had recently been approved for use as a wind farm which we all found hilarious. It was brakes' first gig on an exposed outdoor stage such as this one and it took a lot of concentration what with the mighty gusts blowing in from the north. I didn't play particularly well, a little out of practice i guess but it was fun anyway. At least it didn't rain during our set as it did for most the other bands. Dirty Pretty Things had the worst of it, it even hailed on them..arf. Good to see Maximo Park boys and Editors. Bumped into our old friend Malky, the best tekkie out of glasgow, what a big bearded baby he is. After Editors we set off in our oversized splitter bus with bunks. At about 4am i woke up boiling hot and i was sure to be in a coffin falling into hell so i had to get up. Those bunks aren't made for men my size. I sat it out the rest of the way and saw the sun rise over the misty hampshire hills. Once we'd arrived down in winchester i went back to sleep. Turned out that this leg of hifi was actually homelands but re-branded for this glastonbury-less year. So it was a majority dance audience despite the organisers trying to win over the indie crowd too. Our friends ben and bella came down from stroud with their kids who were all very excited by being at a festival. The weather was better today although we were playing in a giant tent so it didn't really matter. Watched the envelopes from sweden who had the unfortunate duty of playing first. There were maybe 60 people lying around this huge tent watching them and i don't think many people got it but we enjoyed them. We played with them in sxsw so it was good to see them again. After trip-chill-funk-groove meisters crazy p's performance it was our turn. We started well, then eamon broke a string and everything was a bit haphazard. But when we were on it, it sounded great. During one lengthly awkward gap someone shouted "get on with it". I looked down thinking "oh shit" only to find that it was ian brown being the cheeky monkey that he is. We met him afterwards, he played with the kids and was a genuinely nice bloke. Someone decided along the way that we should stay all night and lots more booze started appearing from places thanks to tm steve. It all got a bit messy and then the next thing i knew we were in the van again driving off. It wasn't long before we stopped and steve got breathalised. Obviously he was clean but the local piggies were just out for a nicking. They must have not liked the look of him because they insisted on taking him down the station for further testing. It was weirdly fortunate that this had happened though as we soon realised that alex wasn't on the bus. Pete (sound engineer, also not over the limit) drove us the short distance back to the festival where we found alex asleep in the dressing room. We then heard from steve that all was fine and they'd drop him back where they'd stopped us. Even on leaving the site for the second time there were police everywhere just waiting for someone to make a mistake. A good opportunity to make the numbers up i guess. Steve got a nice video of his interview as a souvenir so we all watched it when we got back to brighton.
So that was all jolly good fun! Now.... some of you might know this already but brakes are off to nashville to record our second album very soon. I'll try my best to give you updates as well as some lovely photos. Wish us luck ya'll..
Marc
I know its been a while but i thought id try and avoid doing this for a bit. Didnt want you all to think i fancied you or something.
Anyway.... Last weekend saw brakes hitting the hi fi north and south festivals in newcastle and winchester respectively. It was windy up in northumberland, the site had recently been approved for use as a wind farm which we all found hilarious. It was brakes' first gig on an exposed outdoor stage such as this one and it took a lot of concentration what with the mighty gusts blowing in from the north. I didn't play particularly well, a little out of practice i guess but it was fun anyway. At least it didn't rain during our set as it did for most the other bands. Dirty Pretty Things had the worst of it, it even hailed on them..arf. Good to see Maximo Park boys and Editors. Bumped into our old friend Malky, the best tekkie out of glasgow, what a big bearded baby he is. After Editors we set off in our oversized splitter bus with bunks. At about 4am i woke up boiling hot and i was sure to be in a coffin falling into hell so i had to get up. Those bunks aren't made for men my size. I sat it out the rest of the way and saw the sun rise over the misty hampshire hills. Once we'd arrived down in winchester i went back to sleep. Turned out that this leg of hifi was actually homelands but re-branded for this glastonbury-less year. So it was a majority dance audience despite the organisers trying to win over the indie crowd too. Our friends ben and bella came down from stroud with their kids who were all very excited by being at a festival. The weather was better today although we were playing in a giant tent so it didn't really matter. Watched the envelopes from sweden who had the unfortunate duty of playing first. There were maybe 60 people lying around this huge tent watching them and i don't think many people got it but we enjoyed them. We played with them in sxsw so it was good to see them again. After trip-chill-funk-groove meisters crazy p's performance it was our turn. We started well, then eamon broke a string and everything was a bit haphazard. But when we were on it, it sounded great. During one lengthly awkward gap someone shouted "get on with it". I looked down thinking "oh shit" only to find that it was ian brown being the cheeky monkey that he is. We met him afterwards, he played with the kids and was a genuinely nice bloke. Someone decided along the way that we should stay all night and lots more booze started appearing from places thanks to tm steve. It all got a bit messy and then the next thing i knew we were in the van again driving off. It wasn't long before we stopped and steve got breathalised. Obviously he was clean but the local piggies were just out for a nicking. They must have not liked the look of him because they insisted on taking him down the station for further testing. It was weirdly fortunate that this had happened though as we soon realised that alex wasn't on the bus. Pete (sound engineer, also not over the limit) drove us the short distance back to the festival where we found alex asleep in the dressing room. We then heard from steve that all was fine and they'd drop him back where they'd stopped us. Even on leaving the site for the second time there were police everywhere just waiting for someone to make a mistake. A good opportunity to make the numbers up i guess. Steve got a nice video of his interview as a souvenir so we all watched it when we got back to brighton.
So that was all jolly good fun! Now.... some of you might know this already but brakes are off to nashville to record our second album very soon. I'll try my best to give you updates as well as some lovely photos. Wish us luck ya'll..
Marc
Wednesday 12 April 2006
back in the ktown
Shalom
Well the last two days of our euro venture were a bit of brain stress. Our flight to zurich was excellent and i cant say anything but good things about swiss air. It was raining when we landed but when we finally got all our bags etc we went and met marc (our swiss promoter) and headed to the hotel to freshen up.
Once fully freshened we went to the venue and sat about for a bit. We'd only had two hours sleep the night before so we soundchecked half asleep and then did quite a bizzare interview with a nice lady called christine. She got us to compile a playlist and do introductions for each song for the radio show, should have a copy of it soon so will stream on site asap, if that's allowed.
Eamon and alex went for a walk in the rain and alex fell down a hill, he's ok though, just a bit muddy. Support band the strivers were very kind and friendly and let us use they're equipment. I was somewhat deranged form lack of sleep by the time we took the stage, the feeling soon passed though and we had good gig. The crowd wasn't particuarly large but all there seemed to have a good time including the strange old small grinning dancing lady at the front. She reminded me of the mysterious midget in the red anorak in nichols roeg's Dont Look Now. This gave me the fear slightly. We got quite pissed afterwards, something of a habit these days, and stumbled into a taxi back to the hotel.
Next day we took the shuttle bus and got in line to check in at the airport. After another highly pleasant flight with swiss air we arrived in brussells. No-one had come to pick us up from the airport so we jumped in another cab and made our way to the sheraton hotel.
Now.. no-one was directly to blame for the completely major balls up that transpired at the sheraton but getting into our rooms was like milking a fish. I wont bore everyone with the minor details but someone had fucked up along the way and because of the inhuman way these hotels are run it took a lot longer than it should have to sort out. We managed to get beds that night but our keycards suddenly stopped working at 12 the next day. On enquiring as to why this was a whole new can of worms was opened and we realised we still didn't have authorisation to stay there even though they'd let us stay there one night already. Go ask GOD. Phone calls were made and faxes were received and it looked like everything was sorted out. Was it fuck! I'll come back to that later..
The gig itself was nice. A good room with good sounding loud speakers. Saw a bit of jenny lewis and the watson twins.. very nice. Saw a bit of emiliana torrini... also very nice although she talks quite a lot and even if her accent is very endearing, when you realise you've only seen 3 songs in 20 minutes it drags a little. We had quite a healthy crowd to start but they slowly depleted towards the end. I guess there were a lot of female solo artist fans there and given that we were the last band of the night it gave everyone an excuse to leave. Belgians do things in a very elementary way, with lots of rules. So we got chucked out of the venue after a while and went back to the hotel.
We still had to pick up keycards for our rooms as the other ones had stopped working earlier in the day. But now there were different people on reception and they had no clue what was going on and still reckoned our room hadn't been paid for. He was right and i suddenly knew what had happened. Luckily the veils tour manager let us use his card for a guarantee and we managed to get to sleep.
That, however wasn't the end of our corporate hotel nightmare.. On checking out this morning we were accused of damaging a lift and destroying and possibly eating some decorative easter eggs that had been handcrafted by some master choclatier. This was bullshit. All we'd done is go to bed. A very frightened looking woman told us that we had to pay €150 and that they had cctv footage of us vandalising an elevator... oh but we weren't allowed to see the footage. My tongue lodged itslef very firmly into the space between my lower lip and my chin as i stared at her. Eventually a man showed up and looked at us and said "This is not them". Id seen various members of the veils falling around the lobby before making their way to the bar the night before. "Were they wearing hats?" I said. Affirmative. It seemed we had our culprits but i didn't let on. "So we dont owe you 150 bucks and we can go?" I said. "Yes" they said without even an apology. We flew home- end of story.
Slightly long for 3 days but i had to get that out of my system.
DO NOT GO TO THE BRUSSELLS SHERATON IF YOU LIKE TO BE TREATED EQUALLY.
Well the last two days of our euro venture were a bit of brain stress. Our flight to zurich was excellent and i cant say anything but good things about swiss air. It was raining when we landed but when we finally got all our bags etc we went and met marc (our swiss promoter) and headed to the hotel to freshen up.
Once fully freshened we went to the venue and sat about for a bit. We'd only had two hours sleep the night before so we soundchecked half asleep and then did quite a bizzare interview with a nice lady called christine. She got us to compile a playlist and do introductions for each song for the radio show, should have a copy of it soon so will stream on site asap, if that's allowed.
Eamon and alex went for a walk in the rain and alex fell down a hill, he's ok though, just a bit muddy. Support band the strivers were very kind and friendly and let us use they're equipment. I was somewhat deranged form lack of sleep by the time we took the stage, the feeling soon passed though and we had good gig. The crowd wasn't particuarly large but all there seemed to have a good time including the strange old small grinning dancing lady at the front. She reminded me of the mysterious midget in the red anorak in nichols roeg's Dont Look Now. This gave me the fear slightly. We got quite pissed afterwards, something of a habit these days, and stumbled into a taxi back to the hotel.
Next day we took the shuttle bus and got in line to check in at the airport. After another highly pleasant flight with swiss air we arrived in brussells. No-one had come to pick us up from the airport so we jumped in another cab and made our way to the sheraton hotel.
Now.. no-one was directly to blame for the completely major balls up that transpired at the sheraton but getting into our rooms was like milking a fish. I wont bore everyone with the minor details but someone had fucked up along the way and because of the inhuman way these hotels are run it took a lot longer than it should have to sort out. We managed to get beds that night but our keycards suddenly stopped working at 12 the next day. On enquiring as to why this was a whole new can of worms was opened and we realised we still didn't have authorisation to stay there even though they'd let us stay there one night already. Go ask GOD. Phone calls were made and faxes were received and it looked like everything was sorted out. Was it fuck! I'll come back to that later..
The gig itself was nice. A good room with good sounding loud speakers. Saw a bit of jenny lewis and the watson twins.. very nice. Saw a bit of emiliana torrini... also very nice although she talks quite a lot and even if her accent is very endearing, when you realise you've only seen 3 songs in 20 minutes it drags a little. We had quite a healthy crowd to start but they slowly depleted towards the end. I guess there were a lot of female solo artist fans there and given that we were the last band of the night it gave everyone an excuse to leave. Belgians do things in a very elementary way, with lots of rules. So we got chucked out of the venue after a while and went back to the hotel.
We still had to pick up keycards for our rooms as the other ones had stopped working earlier in the day. But now there were different people on reception and they had no clue what was going on and still reckoned our room hadn't been paid for. He was right and i suddenly knew what had happened. Luckily the veils tour manager let us use his card for a guarantee and we managed to get to sleep.
That, however wasn't the end of our corporate hotel nightmare.. On checking out this morning we were accused of damaging a lift and destroying and possibly eating some decorative easter eggs that had been handcrafted by some master choclatier. This was bullshit. All we'd done is go to bed. A very frightened looking woman told us that we had to pay €150 and that they had cctv footage of us vandalising an elevator... oh but we weren't allowed to see the footage. My tongue lodged itslef very firmly into the space between my lower lip and my chin as i stared at her. Eventually a man showed up and looked at us and said "This is not them". Id seen various members of the veils falling around the lobby before making their way to the bar the night before. "Were they wearing hats?" I said. Affirmative. It seemed we had our culprits but i didn't let on. "So we dont owe you 150 bucks and we can go?" I said. "Yes" they said without even an apology. We flew home- end of story.
Slightly long for 3 days but i had to get that out of my system.
DO NOT GO TO THE BRUSSELLS SHERATON IF YOU LIKE TO BE TREATED EQUALLY.
Saturday 8 April 2006
bologna, 8th april
Bonjourno!
Italy is bellissimo! The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the beer flows like wine! This is our fourth and final show of our mini italian tour. It was raining in Milan and the gig was sparingly attended. Those who were there seemed to have a good time though. On to Roma next and it was a long old drive. We got to experience a bit of italian radio as our van annoyingly has no cd player. Choice artists of the moment seem to be dickie ashcroft and the androgynous, unnecessary sylable adding indie of placebo. There is one dj here who has the annoying habit of putting a song on only to fade it out a minute later and do his own rendition with accoustic guitar and bongos. How he has avoided a sacking is beyond me. The venue in rome was lush, we were playing the second date of a two day festival called 'strange days' supporting berlin kitcsh two piece Stereo Total. You may recognise one of their songs in a sony dv cam advert. We had a splendid dinner round the corner and then played a goodun. The friendliness of the romans after the show was astounding, they were giving us pot! Whilst readying ourselves to leave, an obviosly drunk lady from Stereo Total told me our songs are too short. "Is it because of your parents?" she said. Fuck knows what the hell she was on about. Another long drive faced us the next day towards turin but once again the scenery alone was enough to keep us entertained. We were all a bit grouchy when we got to the venue but the show was very enjoyable none the less. We aired versions of a couple of new songs which was fun and again we were given pot by those present which definately eased the pain. The hotel in Turin had been erected purely to accomodate winter sports fans for the olympics just gone, and the rooms did have a locker room vibe to them. No smoking, no TV.. now whats that all about? Had a good drive to bologna and dropped off part time tour manager Andrea on the way. He was one fresh dude.
Looking forward to tonight, and to travelling to switzerland tomorrow. Ta-ra for now
Italy is bellissimo! The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the beer flows like wine! This is our fourth and final show of our mini italian tour. It was raining in Milan and the gig was sparingly attended. Those who were there seemed to have a good time though. On to Roma next and it was a long old drive. We got to experience a bit of italian radio as our van annoyingly has no cd player. Choice artists of the moment seem to be dickie ashcroft and the androgynous, unnecessary sylable adding indie of placebo. There is one dj here who has the annoying habit of putting a song on only to fade it out a minute later and do his own rendition with accoustic guitar and bongos. How he has avoided a sacking is beyond me. The venue in rome was lush, we were playing the second date of a two day festival called 'strange days' supporting berlin kitcsh two piece Stereo Total. You may recognise one of their songs in a sony dv cam advert. We had a splendid dinner round the corner and then played a goodun. The friendliness of the romans after the show was astounding, they were giving us pot! Whilst readying ourselves to leave, an obviosly drunk lady from Stereo Total told me our songs are too short. "Is it because of your parents?" she said. Fuck knows what the hell she was on about. Another long drive faced us the next day towards turin but once again the scenery alone was enough to keep us entertained. We were all a bit grouchy when we got to the venue but the show was very enjoyable none the less. We aired versions of a couple of new songs which was fun and again we were given pot by those present which definately eased the pain. The hotel in Turin had been erected purely to accomodate winter sports fans for the olympics just gone, and the rooms did have a locker room vibe to them. No smoking, no TV.. now whats that all about? Had a good drive to bologna and dropped off part time tour manager Andrea on the way. He was one fresh dude.
Looking forward to tonight, and to travelling to switzerland tomorrow. Ta-ra for now
Tuesday 21 March 2006
NYC MOFO
Aaaaah, we're finally in new york city. Austin was good but im a man of the north. I like to feel those arctic winds on my face and breathe the cold air. We had a great day in the studio on sunday, i wont say too much but it was a lovely place full of great gear and a ping pong table. We went on quite late and seeing as we had a 0640 flight in the morning we couldn't be bothered to sleep so we just stayed up. There was a storm over texas that night, sheet lightning and more rain than ive ever seen. The worst of it had passed by 4 but when we came to fly there were still some bitchin looking clouds above. It was something of a white knuckle ride getting that bird up in the sky and it didn't exactly settle down either. The stewardesses were very relaxed though so we knew everything was ok, it just didn't help being so deprived of sleep. We touched down just fine and got to our hotel on the lower east side. Being in new york seemed to give us a all a new burst of energy despite the lack of sleep so we stepped out, grabbed a slice of pizza and took a stroll over chelsea way. Found a great clothes shop called Dave's where i managed to replace a pair of gloves id lost in oslo. Bought a new bass as well which i'll be playing today. Its all black and shiny. Today we have a lot to do. a virgin instore at 3:30 followed by a sirius radio session. Finally this aftershow party where there'll be lots of drunk english people. I couldn't feel more at home.
Monday 20 March 2006
yee.....ha
Alright? ive not had the time or the energy to keep a regular account of our time in texas but id just like to say that we've been having a blast. Our final performance at yesterdays Moshi Moshi label party (not the japanese restaurant) was a real stonker. We ate steak afterwards. All in all the trip has been a huge success for both brakes and esp who gave it there all for their first ever amewrican shows. They've got to be a lot more tired than me thats for sure. We're doing some recording today and then we're off to NYC tomorrow.
Take care ya'll.
Take care ya'll.
Saturday 4 March 2006
homestead
Yo Dudes
So this whole touring solid malarkey is taking a break for a week and a half to allow us to re-charge our batteries. The last gig supporting editors was last night and now we're all back home wondering what to do with ourselves.... except for tom whose gone hiking in the highlands.
Bristol was the first regional editors show we did and once again we'd managed to be late. A third band- Kubicheck!- had been added to the bill so we forfeited our sound check and let them go ahead. There were a few additions to the touring crew, given that they were taking the same pa system to every venue. We didn't quite get the chance to get to know them that night, everything was rushed and a bit frantic. Eamon had forgotten to bring his cappo on stage and the rest of us were a little dismayed when he suddenly bounded off stage mid set to fetch it. I thought he's gone to puke. Nice to see alex from clayhill there although i couldn't find him after the gig as it was such a squeeze, sorry mate.. i tried. Nice to see stroudie ben too who gave us all packs of columbian ciggarettes that probably gave me this awful cough. That night there were men and women screaming violently at each other in the corridors of bristol travelodge. Someone threatened to call the police and they quitened down after about an hour.
Southampton next and we arrived in good time. It was a big old hall with a steinway in the dressing room and automatic doors back stage. The audience were useless, we gave and got nothing in return. It was a mildly crushing experience. Apparently upon eamon giving the editors boys a shout out and tom and alex dropping into a couple of bars of 'Munich' for a laugh, someone in the crowd turned to their fellow gig-goer and said "Oh! Is this them already?". Knowing that made it all seem ok again.
It was off to Norwich the next day and i had a good feeling about it. Waynne put his foot down and got us there pretty damn quick. I don't think id been in that part of the country all that much so it was nice to have a look, very flat isn't it? Lots of cedars too. The gig itself was in the university of east anglia union. There wasn't much to do between duties so i practiced my juggling. I'm getting pretty good, perhaps my dreams of becoming a clown could be realised soon. The show was really good for us, a very enthusiastic crowd and quite a few fans of our own were present and singing along.
It was raining in Manchester. There was nothing particularly memorbable about the gig but we a had a good old booze up afterwards in big hands. There were lots of rounds being bought. I managed to spit a cork into some girls beer, she wasn't happy but she gave me the beer on the promise that id buy her another one if i saw her again, and i will. It was the last night for Kubicheck! who headed off to support Futureheads on a secret club gig around the uk. Good luck to them!
Ah, a day off in Glasgow, what sweet bliss. Following a much needed night off we were excited for Barrowlands. Id not played there before but had heard so much. It was bloody freezing in there and our dressing room had the distinct feeling that a murder had taken place in it. Gig was a funny one for us, bit iffy sound on stage but apparently it was a goodun. I'll happily stand corrected to some of the reports on this very forum. It was just nice to play in scotland again.
Leaving Glasgow was as painfull as always but we know we'll be back soon, possibly playing some other places than tut's too! Dundee anyone? Back down to the newcastle accademy it was. We'd had a good time there with belle and sebastian. The acoustics are pretty spot on in there so we were encouraging waynne to crank it, not that he needed any encouraging. Eamon got the name of the record shop where we'd done an instore that afternoon wrong, i'll apologise on his behalf as it was a very good record shop and everyone involved was very nice. So that's RPM records Bridgegate (i think), Newcastle upon Tyne.. biggup. Good gig for us though, loud and ballsy. Russell from editors made us aware of a surprise they'd been planning for us the next day. OUr minds BoGgLeD!!!
So we hit the midlands for our final show with editors in the same venue that we'd started our tour with B&S. One big euro tour circle of lurve. It was an ealry gig as there was a club night afterwards so the whole thing went quite quickly. The surprise still hadn't been revealed by the time we were due onstage. We were having a real blinder of a gig and we could see the end in sights when suddenly the lights went pink. "Thats funny" i thought, they'd been blue for our set the whole tour, why would they change now? It was all revealed once we stared NY PIe when 3 members of editors and radio and television's edith bowman came onstage in pantomime horse and cow costumes led by there guitar technician rich. It was certainly a surpirse and i didn't quite know what to do at first. There was this disbelief and then i got the joke and couldn't stop laughing, completely missing loads of notes with distraction. It didn't matter... it was fucking funny and i cant wait to see the photos, what a cheeky bunch! There was much boozing and revelry afterwards and the corridors were busy with guests. We stayed as long as we could and then we made our way back down to brighton. We had no-where to leave our stuff so matt eaton of the hanbury arms and brakes guest singing took us in for the night and gave us guinness.
So this whole touring solid malarkey is taking a break for a week and a half to allow us to re-charge our batteries. The last gig supporting editors was last night and now we're all back home wondering what to do with ourselves.... except for tom whose gone hiking in the highlands.
Bristol was the first regional editors show we did and once again we'd managed to be late. A third band- Kubicheck!- had been added to the bill so we forfeited our sound check and let them go ahead. There were a few additions to the touring crew, given that they were taking the same pa system to every venue. We didn't quite get the chance to get to know them that night, everything was rushed and a bit frantic. Eamon had forgotten to bring his cappo on stage and the rest of us were a little dismayed when he suddenly bounded off stage mid set to fetch it. I thought he's gone to puke. Nice to see alex from clayhill there although i couldn't find him after the gig as it was such a squeeze, sorry mate.. i tried. Nice to see stroudie ben too who gave us all packs of columbian ciggarettes that probably gave me this awful cough. That night there were men and women screaming violently at each other in the corridors of bristol travelodge. Someone threatened to call the police and they quitened down after about an hour.
Southampton next and we arrived in good time. It was a big old hall with a steinway in the dressing room and automatic doors back stage. The audience were useless, we gave and got nothing in return. It was a mildly crushing experience. Apparently upon eamon giving the editors boys a shout out and tom and alex dropping into a couple of bars of 'Munich' for a laugh, someone in the crowd turned to their fellow gig-goer and said "Oh! Is this them already?". Knowing that made it all seem ok again.
It was off to Norwich the next day and i had a good feeling about it. Waynne put his foot down and got us there pretty damn quick. I don't think id been in that part of the country all that much so it was nice to have a look, very flat isn't it? Lots of cedars too. The gig itself was in the university of east anglia union. There wasn't much to do between duties so i practiced my juggling. I'm getting pretty good, perhaps my dreams of becoming a clown could be realised soon. The show was really good for us, a very enthusiastic crowd and quite a few fans of our own were present and singing along.
It was raining in Manchester. There was nothing particularly memorbable about the gig but we a had a good old booze up afterwards in big hands. There were lots of rounds being bought. I managed to spit a cork into some girls beer, she wasn't happy but she gave me the beer on the promise that id buy her another one if i saw her again, and i will. It was the last night for Kubicheck! who headed off to support Futureheads on a secret club gig around the uk. Good luck to them!
Ah, a day off in Glasgow, what sweet bliss. Following a much needed night off we were excited for Barrowlands. Id not played there before but had heard so much. It was bloody freezing in there and our dressing room had the distinct feeling that a murder had taken place in it. Gig was a funny one for us, bit iffy sound on stage but apparently it was a goodun. I'll happily stand corrected to some of the reports on this very forum. It was just nice to play in scotland again.
Leaving Glasgow was as painfull as always but we know we'll be back soon, possibly playing some other places than tut's too! Dundee anyone? Back down to the newcastle accademy it was. We'd had a good time there with belle and sebastian. The acoustics are pretty spot on in there so we were encouraging waynne to crank it, not that he needed any encouraging. Eamon got the name of the record shop where we'd done an instore that afternoon wrong, i'll apologise on his behalf as it was a very good record shop and everyone involved was very nice. So that's RPM records Bridgegate (i think), Newcastle upon Tyne.. biggup. Good gig for us though, loud and ballsy. Russell from editors made us aware of a surprise they'd been planning for us the next day. OUr minds BoGgLeD!!!
So we hit the midlands for our final show with editors in the same venue that we'd started our tour with B&S. One big euro tour circle of lurve. It was an ealry gig as there was a club night afterwards so the whole thing went quite quickly. The surprise still hadn't been revealed by the time we were due onstage. We were having a real blinder of a gig and we could see the end in sights when suddenly the lights went pink. "Thats funny" i thought, they'd been blue for our set the whole tour, why would they change now? It was all revealed once we stared NY PIe when 3 members of editors and radio and television's edith bowman came onstage in pantomime horse and cow costumes led by there guitar technician rich. It was certainly a surpirse and i didn't quite know what to do at first. There was this disbelief and then i got the joke and couldn't stop laughing, completely missing loads of notes with distraction. It didn't matter... it was fucking funny and i cant wait to see the photos, what a cheeky bunch! There was much boozing and revelry afterwards and the corridors were busy with guests. We stayed as long as we could and then we made our way back down to brighton. We had no-where to leave our stuff so matt eaton of the hanbury arms and brakes guest singing took us in for the night and gave us guinness.
Friday 24 February 2006
at least all travelodges look the same....
......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.
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.
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
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