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
Tuesday, 25 July 2006
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
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