ComEnts

I broke my collar bone last month playing football, so for once I have a good reason for having no updates! Ha!

We had a couple of weeks off from Joey Ultra duties after our last gig and then I broke my shoulder the day before we were due to restart rehearsing so it's been a frustrating couple of months with no band action. We've got our first rehearsal back on Monday, so we'll see if I can actually play. It's possibly my shoulder will stand up to the strain but very possible it won't. Sadly we also had to turn down a gig on 17th of May due to the stupid shoulder but I think we've got 2 in the pipeline, both in Reading of course! 11th June and 4th July. Independence day! I'll let you know more closer to the time.



Breakages didn't stop me from going to Holland to follow the Pirates on tour though. I went off to Rotterdam, The Hague and Amsterdam to see them play and it was great. Every night was in a great venue and busy, 2 of them sold out. It'd be so good if Reading had a venue as good as either Rotown or the small room at Paard van Troje (Trojan horse) where they played. Quite a few of the fans knew all the words to all the songs, even though the album isn't out in Holland yet, and loads of people knew all the singles. I was really surprised at how great the crowds were.



Kevin says in a comment below that Coments is 4 years old! That means I must have made nearly 50 posts talking rubbish about whatever band I was in at the time, the Pirates, and other tenuous musical chat. I can't believe you lot still read them but thanks for sticking with us if you do.

I found this latest blog post on pampelmoose very interesting. Short story is in the title of this blog, but EMI have hired a guy who worked at Google to try and sort out how they can make money out of music online. I can't really add much more to what Dave Allen says on that link. I especially liked these questions:

"Maybe he can find a way to compare that activity to the way labels have used another free format for their customers to hear their music - FM Radio. And also he might discuss how much money EMI loses by making music videos then giving them away for free to MTV."

Yeah, good points. Personally I think it's a very good idea for EMI, or any record company, to employ someone who really understands how making money on the internet works to try and help them move their business model along, but I'm not sure how much success he'll have changing such deeply entrenched ideas. Could be a very interesting story to watch.

My copy of Does It Offend You, Yeah?'s debut album arrived yesterday. I'm enjoying it a lot. I'm sure I've said it on here before but the surprising thing about DIOYY live is just how hard they rock. There are many types of music that are called Electro, and DIOYY are often referred to as an Electro band but I think of them more as a rock band. Perhaps one of their strengths is having such a wide range of influences that a lot of people can relate to something they do. I hear things that remind me of heavy bands, dance bands, electro bands, indie schmindie bands. It's quite a varied album, the first three songs are the kind of heavy electro you might expect from early singles, but then you get almost straight 80s pop songs and even what I can only describe as the theme from a noughties Japanese Austin Powers in Attack of the Lesbian Octopus. 2 minutes of instrumental fun that's one of my favourite tracks on the album.

It's been a brilliant year or so for Reading based bands. Long may it continue!

Tonight I'm off to see Six Nation State at the Rising Sun Arts Centre which is always carnage but I'm planning on taking it easy for a trip to the big smoke on Saturday. Woo

Labels: Does it Offend You Yeah, Six Nation State

Someone asked how the gig was. Well. It was pretty good.

My first experience of Bar Four as a venue and it worked quite well. The sound for the bands was good, there was a backstage area for us to sit in etc.

There were a few downsides. It was a bit confusing what was going on. We didn't know what the order of bands would be until we got there, we were on first, which was fine, but that wasn't until 9:30pm. I think the peak time for band watching on a school night in Reading is 8:30pm to 10:30pm, after that, people start wanting to go home for work the next day. The other problem with us going first, and so late, was that a lot of people who came to see us watched us, then as it was already gone ten, pretty much left straight away. Which was really tough for the other bands. The Cheddington Incident played to basically the other bands and a handful of other people.

I'd certainly go back as a punter on a Wednesday to watch bands there. Playing wise I think we did ok. Due to the late start time I was pretty drunk when we went on but a few people said some nice things which is always good to hear and the promoter said he'd like to have us back sometime, so that's good too.

Labels: gig, Joey Ultra

It's like I only blog when we've got a gig... we should have more gigs. Anyway... Joey Ultra are playing at Bar Four in Reading tomorrow. It's free entry, and I've never been to the pub when it's hosting gigs before so I don't quite know what to expect. I hope it's a really good night. Reading could use a really good regular free midweek gig. I'll let you know what it was like, if you can't come down.

The other bands are Echobeat and Chedington Incident.

I also got the Let's Wrestle EP, In Loving Memory Of... yesterday. Let's Wrestle are on Stolen Recordings and apparently formed a band after spending many Sunday evenings watching the Stolen gigs and being massive fans. Live they can be a bit shambolic but they've got great songs and both the shambolicness and the greatness comes across on the EP.

I can't remember what else I was going to tell you so I'll leave it at that and post again if it comes back to be.

Labels: gig, Joey Ultra, Let's Wrestle

Former KERRANG!!!!!!!!!!!!! writer Ian Winwood has an interesting blog in the Guardian today about his feud with Nickleback. Now I remember the Nickleback article at the time, it was shortly before I had to stop reading Kerrang due to it being almost completely unreadable and musically irrelevant.

Basically it recounts the time that he called Chad Kroeger a cunt (fully deserved) and Kroeger challenged him to a fight. Happy days.

Just found some photos of the gig on Adam Reading's photostream on Flickr.. check them out here

Labels: Adam Reading, Joey Ultra, Photos

Woo, we had our first good gig on Saturday.



Our second appearance at the Plug'n'Play version of Club Velocity went really well I think. Paul dropped our gear off early on in the afternoon so we could just wander down a bit later on for soundcheck. Which meant we could go and get some food and a few beers in the pub together which was cool. Soundcheck went really well. The new monitors at Plug'n'Play are brilliant. Really crisp and clear, and Richard the new sound guy really knew what he was doing. So for the first time since I played in Brixton with Sonic Undermind I actually had perfect on-stage sound. It's a very rare and very beautiful thing.

We'd been slightly worried beforehand that we might not fit in too well with some of the other bands styles, but in the end it worked quite well. Diamond Lines were really nice guys and sounded brilliant in sound check, although I didn't see much of their set due to catching up with friends who'd come to see us, and we had a good chat with the singer from The Noyze backstage, he was cool too.

Unlike our lead guitarist, I didn't end up at an illegal rave that could have been straight out of Skins (new series tonight 10pm E4!) but never mind.

Labels: Joey Ultra