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.
Tuesday, 19 September 2006
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
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