After recovering from the enjoyable yet damp Beautiful Days festival, we retreated to 284 studios once more to write and rehearse more for our imminent third album sessions. The songs are really taking shape now and we just want to get into the studio and start recording properly. This process will begin up in Glasgow straight after End of the Road festival.
The following Thursday we were back in 284 rehearsing for Brighton's new Beachdown Festival. Alex wasn't able to make the gig due to a previous commitment playing a festival near Carlisle with The Pipettes so we were rehearsing with a replacement. And who did we get to fill Alex's mightily rhythmic shoes? Mr Damo Waters, current ESP drummer, also known as The Muddy Suzuki;- his solo project alter ego. I highly suggest you all get your hands on his album Meetoo. It's brilliant. We'd never played with a replacement member before so we thought it was going to be weird, but after a few songs it was clear that he was more than capable. In fact, more than capable is an understatement, he was pretty much faultless and he hadn't even played any of the songs on a kit before. Due to sound and space issues in his new flat he'd only been able to listen to the songs on his headphones whilst tapping out the beats on his legs and memorising them. But here he was playing the songs pretty much perfectly. It put all our minds at rest for sure. After rehearsal we had a few pints in the Hand in Hand and called it a day.
The next day Eamon and I went to our old flat in Kemp Town to do some recording with our old flat mate and BSP bassist Hamilton at the legendary Princess Studio. Princess has been Hamilton's audio laboratory for the best part of 5 years as well as being the location for recordings by The Tenderfoot, Actress Hands, Good Morning Captain and numerous Brakes b-sides. It's dark, slightly smelly and just a little bit scary like you know something bad happened there once long ago. Its intimate atmosphere really forces musicians to listen to each other and play off each other more, always with brilliant and unique results. Eamon wanted to record a new romantic blues number called "I Could Be Your Fifth Gear". I played some drums and some guitar and Eamon did some singing. We drank some whisky and then i had to go.
That night I watched some of the BBC's questionable coverage of the Reading Festival. I felt sorry for Edith Bowman who was co-presenting the show with Zane Lowe. Lets just say there wasn't much chemistry there. I was shocked and insulted by MGMT who, after a full band set, sang their big hit Time To Pretend (undoubtedly a quality pop song) along to a backing track. A fucking backing track? Pure lazy. What really got my goat about it was that the tens of thousands of Top Shop clad hapless fools in their stupid fucking slitty glasses were lapping it up without a question. Muso rant over. Queens of the Stone Age were good though, or what you could make out of them through all the digital interference.
Saturday came around and it was a beautifully typical English summers day. We drove up to Devil's Dyke, the south downs location for Brighton's new Beachdown festival. We were booked to play the main stage at 2:30 p.m and from the car park I could see a stage that I just assumed was the main stage. I headed in that direction and found the stage manager. He confirmed what time we were on and told me that our dressing room wasn't ready yet. The others turned up and after standing around for a moment someone else told us that we weren't playing on that stage at all. I don't know what that stage manager was on about, obviously trying to mess with my head. We were directed out into the field where we could now see the true scale of the festival site. It was huge. Most the stages and food vendors were perched up on the hill by the road with a huge line of punter tents lining the adjacent hill. As we walked down the hill it was clear what a beautiful site it was. The green hills of the south downs meandered up and down all the way to the horizon where a large dark blue sea met the vibrant sky. The hill got steeper and before long we were descending on the main stage which was nestled right in the dip of the valley flanked by two steep hills.
As soon as we arrived and dumped our stuff the first act took to the stage. They were a samba band called Carnival Collective and they were very loud with their troop of drummers and such. Next up were Brighton based Doll and the Kicks and then it was our turn. I wasn't really nervous despite having many friends and family there. The stage sound was good and the crew helpful. We had fun. Damo played a blinder and basically we all had a great time. It was early in the day so attendance was thin on the ground but towards the end we had 3 or 4 hundred dancing down the front. There was also a great deal of people slumped on the hills obviously recovering from the night before.
After the show we watched Lightspeed Champion and Hercules and Love Affair who were both good. I got a bit stressed out running around trying to get extra guest-list for people. This was particularly annoying because it involved running up and down that hill several time until I just thought "why should i bother" and had a beer instead. Hunger pangs began to set in but no-one had told us where artist catering was. There was no way I was going to pay for my own meal so off i went searching, with my food voucher in my hand. After about twenty minutes I finally found it and I was overjoyed. We filled up on lamb shanks, turkey escalopes and as much free soup, bread and pud that we could. After some digestion time we went off to watch Restless List. Then we caught a bit of The Maccabees before going to see Yokoko, a new band made up of some mates of mine. There set was fun if not a little short due to the band being so new that they've not got many songs.
It was dark and cold now and me and the Mrs decided to make a run for it. We hadn't really considered how we were going to get back to Brighton but we were willing to get a cab if there was one available. We hiked up that bloody hill one last time and made our way to the front gate where luckily a cab was just dropping someone off. Soon we were back in Kemp Town where we were to meet up with some friends. The taxi driver said we'd been the nicest two people she'd driven all day which was nice. We drank until the early hours of the morning.
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