A shadow with no clothes

Its been a while since we updated this thing. To be fair we've been prepping for shows. Played 3 now. Red Lion, Metro, Grey Horse.

Next one is at Fighting Cocks, followed by Archway Tavern (the next day). Got one confirmed in Hobgoblin, another at the Cocks, trying to sort out one at Project Orange and another one in Brighton. crazy. Its been far too long, well it feels like it.

In the rehearsal rooms we're making progress. We've started to create 2 seperate sets.

Set A is Heavy in your face
Set B is Chilled in your face

Hopefully for the upcoming Cocks gig we'll be playing Set B, which means tracks like - Riding The Biaxial (RTB), Left Arm in Love (LAIL), Travel in the Light (TITL), Mixed Inglish (MI)... Hopefully we'll pull it together in time. In rehearsal tonight, TITL sounded really good and groovy. We played it badly but thats only to be expected. I think we havn't played that song for close to a year now. RTB was gethering some magic momentum but amusingly fell apart when it went heavy. Just have to sort out the sound. LAIL is a mutha-phuka to get right. We need to sort out some more loopy stuff to fill in gaps. think of this as audio poly-filler(?).

But now there are some new songs emerging. I guess ones worth mentioning are...

The Castratition - Charlie was saying how it shares similarities with 'MI'. but only because there are lots of melodic parts that change very quickly from one to another. We've got the whole song, now its just a case of streching and squeezing phrases until it all fits together nicely. Oh, and its in 3/4 if that helps.

Blue - Its kinda like a ballad. Very soft and delayed guitar line. Some awesome swelling growly Bass lines from Sam. Not quite finished, but its got a nice vocal line so far. A nice head bouncing beat from Charles. It'll be interesting to see where this one heads.

Snail - as the title suggests its very slow. Kinda like Mogwai or Low. Not that close to being finished, maybe we'll attempt it again at some point later on.

Fly out of Buildings - Think Mars Volta meets Radiohead, but not quite as lovely as you imagine it to be. This is quite a tricky one because there is no obvious chorus or verse, its like one big bit of music. 7/8 this one. moving to 8/8 later, and then maybe back...?

This is what we are up to. This is what we'll be doing until July (this and playing more gigs). When something interesting happens we'll keep you informed. If you can help sort us a gig, feel free to so so and let us know. We're all open armed.

thanks for the nice reception at the last few gigs so far.

'Red Lion Rumble'

Last night we played our first gig in...well, nobody actually knows how long, although one well-informed speculator claimed that five months was the approximate time period. Whatever, it felt like forever.

The gig was in aid of raising money for the B.S.S.K. Children's Fund in Pune, India, as organised by a family friend of the Sharmas'. The first time we've really done a fundraiser, I personally hope that there will be many more. The atmosphere and spirit was inspirational, a great time was had by all and the latest figures suggest that over £1000 was raised. Not bad at all for a rainy Sunday night, southwest of the smokey city.

And, to add to all of this, it really did feel most awesomely cool to be back onstage. If there was ever gona be any compensation for the bad luck of late (the most recent additions to the list being the crashing of band transport facilities and, a couple of days later, an equally unfortunate, but not quite so severe, incident with our backup vehicle!), then last night more than satisfied that requirement.

We hope it was enjoyed just as much by you guys. Thank you, to all, for coming on down. Your post-show comments were truly touching. Thank you, also, for making your contribution towards such a good cause and thanks to Ian for inviting us to be part of the event.

Think I'm ready for the Oscars?

See you at the Metro on the 23rd.