ComEnts

Moving house this weekend (FINALLY!) which is great. Well being moved out will be great, the actual moving will be a total bitch. Really stressful and tiring. Sadly in the middle of moving I've got to attend one of the best gigs Reading's ever seen! I don't see how that's going to help me pack and move boxes on Sunday but there you go.

Saturday night's line-up at the Face bar is absolutely incredible. It's being called Girls R Loud because the bands are mainly made up of girls (with a few boys playing drums). Not that that matters, it's just 4 really good bands.

I saw Wet Dog supporting Pete and the Pirates on the last leg of their mini-tour together, and was really impressed. You'll know that if you read the review I wrote at the time. Great stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing them again, apparently Johnny from Pete and the Pirates is playing with them again, drummer is in Italy again.

All You Miss used to be called Caliber. I saw them... ooh, probably a couple of years ago now. I thought they were really good, rocked really hard and were very young! I haven't seen them since but the recordings I've heard on Tim Wolfe's Blast radio show sound like they've really moved on since then.

We Start Fires are a bunch of crazy girls from Darlington backed by a guy on drums who played a cracking set at Club Velocity a few months back. Great energy and charisma, they are as hillarious on-stage between songs as they were off it.

And all that is topped off by Yumiyumi. There can't be many Japanese bands that have played Reading as often as these girls. Japanese pop vocals, hard rocking riffs and a teddy bear playing an 808 giving the rhythms.

4 great bands 8:30pm at the Face bar, don't miss this one.

Yeah, yeah, I should have written something earlier, have been busy though. I actually went to Stonehenge (where the demons dwell) on Friday which was really cool. It's funny how it takes people visiting from another country before you start seeing the interesting stuff in your own country sometimes. I've never been to Stonehenge (where the banshees live and they do live well) before. I'd never even seen it from the road, which apparently everyone else has. It's an interesting place. Stonehenge (where a man is a man and the children dance to the pipes of pan) itself is much smaller than I was expecting, that seems to make it more human though. It has got some kind of aura about the place as well despite being very touristy and surrounded by people and right next to a road. I don't really believe in all that superstitious crap, but it was an odd feeling place. We also went to see the stone circle at Avebury which is apparently older. If someone ever tells you "Oh, go to Avebury instead, it's better" they are lying. It's just some old rocks in a field with a big ditch, ok, it's still cool but not as cool as Stonehenge (tis a magic place where the moon doth rise with a dragon's face).

Why did I start on about that? Oh yeah, part of the reason I haven't blogged about the last gig yet. So to that.

The night was great, if a little stressful. I kind of assumed the role of stage manager for the night by default. Everyone got to play their full sets I think and we finished the music dead on 11:30 so I reckon it was ok from that point of view. Not an easy job though!

AK stepped in at the last minute to play a few tunes acoustically, which was cool. It actually worked really well, he's got a lot more confidence when talking into the mic than a lot of the local acoustic performers (Graham out of Three Litre being the exception) and he can sing, and play the guitar - which is a bonus for our upcoming band!

RipChord had a crew from KERRANG! TV with them. Shortly after I arrived at the venue RipChord were somewhere up the stairs at Colorz shouting "We are RipChord" into a bullhorn, bizarre start to the night. I'd never seen them before but their soundcheck was really, really good. They played really well, very tight. Several people mentioned to me that they sounded a bit like Muse.

Left Side Brain were good as always, although I was a bit distracted during their set, I always seem to not really pay much attention to the band that's on immediately before us. Just thinking about other stuff.

It was odd playing our last gig, through the evening everyone kept asking if I was sad about it, I wasn't really. I'm still not, it was a great gig to play, we just had loads of fun, the crowd were amazing (I pretty much recognised everyone in it) but every song seemed to get a huge roar. It was definitely up there with the Catapult Club and Josaka CD launch party as the best crowds we ever played to. It was also probably the most fun we've had playing together, the sound on stage at Colorz isn't great but we managed, it was more about energy than perfection and I think it worked a lot better. The two reviews seemed to be pretty positive too. Although I'm not sure exactly why Pete's cool new Pittsburgh Pirates hat, a new present specially brought over from the states for him, was considered naff in Linda Serck's BBC Berkshire review. I think there is some local band in joke about naff hats relating to Rebus's gig at Pop Toys but I really don't know what it is. Kevin Harrington did a review for Josaka too... well his two star* reviewers were playing the night.

Oh - and Pete and the Pirates were great on Friday, they just keep getting better. I have offered to make them a website so we'll see if anything happens with that.

*That's the star reviewers of which there are two, not the reviewers who warrant only two stars in the reviewer star rating system.

So it's the last ever Sonic Undermind gig on Thursday, my attention is being drawn away from that by house stress (still need to find somewhere...) but luckily I have most things sorted so all I need to do on Thursday is turn up at Bar Oz with my amp head and guitar! (oh, and footswitch, and spare guitar... plectrums, money, CDs...). Easily doable. It's quite a shame, I was jamming through our songs the other day and we have written some really interesting stuff over the years. Now things are coming to an end I can look at it slightly more objectively. I even enjoyed playing Carpet Burns on Sunday! That hasn't happened for a long time.

I am still mystified by the amazing popularity of Rock Hat. David Miller mentioned it in glowing terms here but even before then it was Pete and the Pirates' favourite song, and many others. I think Sonic Undermind have three main types of fans. Those who like Rock Hat, those who like Helix and those who wish we were still The Unholy. I was at a wedding on Saturday night and when I was telling people about the band splitting up two seperate people said "No more Rock Hat!". I like it as a song but I don't quite get what people see in it over and above our other songs, it has the best drums by a long way and I like the vocal but a better song than Painless? I guess that the band isn't always the best judge of their best songs. I was talking to Ben Marwood about the same thing the other day. I reviewed his solo EP a while back and the song that I loved most was the one that he dropped from his solo set because it annoyed him. Apparently it's now back in by popular demand.

Interesting question for a band isn't it. When you are in a band it's really annoying to play the same old songs over and over again but as a gig goer you want the band to play all your favourite songs, the hit singles or whatever. When in a band I was like "who cares what they want, we should play what we want". I'm such a hypocrite sometimes.

If anyone hands in - or finds - a summertime, can they please pass it to the relevant authorities. We seem to have missed one this year, and as it is decidedly wintery today I'm thinking that we may get short-changed by an autumn, too. Big, round, hairy ones.

Watch out for a new band - Ultra Violent Knights. Not sure when their first EP ("Knights of the Round Tablet") will be out, but having heard previews of some tracks I can state categorically that they kick in arse in all directions.

So, I was looking at the BBC News website and I found this hillarious article about the new Advert Channel that some people will be (un)lucky enough to get on digital TV in the near future.

An incredible idea? Well, as the article says there have been plenty of 'funny ad' shows in the past. So what is it that I find so funny about this channel? Well, depsite being the Advert Channel, they aren't being funded by adverts! No, they are screening adverts all day but these aren't being paid for by the advertisers because they are older or foriegn adverts and there are no normal ad breaks. Confused? I am.

Anyway, to make their money, they are running those competitions where you can win a playstation or something if you spend eight hundred quadzillion pounds answering a question on a premium rate phone line! Something I find far, far more irritating than ad breaks. You know the ones.

Who used to date Justin Timberlake?
1. Britney Spears
2. Tony Blair
3. As Wittgenstein said; Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.

Phone 0891.. etc.

Who on earth phones in for those things? Mind you, I have a remote control and the BBC so I never need to watch standard adverts, which does beg the question as to what's more mind numbing, 5 minutes of adverts on Sky 1 or 5 minutes of Changing Rooms.

Things are falling into place slowly but surely. The Sonic Undermind rehearsal was really good fun. It was great to go into a rehearsal with nothing else going on and just enjoy playing the songs again. We've got another quick tightening up rehearsal next weekend but I'm really looking forward to the gig now.

House things are also looking a bit easier. Still need to find a place but have some to look at.

And I had a relatively easy weekend. Club V was a lot of fun. I noticed that The Pricillas had a song about Zombies, also one about space and super heroes. I knew that stuff was cool! If only Sonic Undermind had been a girl punk band with short skirts...

Oh and we found a really good drummer for the new rock project (with AK) which is great news. Hopefully get cracking with that in October.

Gnyaaahh!!!! It's so frustrating trying to get new musical projects off the ground! People always tell me what a one-in-a-million lucky shot it is to be in a band, but they don’t know the half of it. It's not just whatever drives you to want to be in a band (playing live, expressing yourself musically, meeting drunk, impressionable women, whatever), it's finding other people who a) are happy with you being in the band b) you are happy being in a band with. And if - IF - you can get past these two hurdles, well that's where your troubles really begin. Finding time to get all these people in the same room together more than once every blue moon is proving extremely troublesome. The real sucker punch is when you "feel" the right vibes, or latch onto something that makes you think "Yes! I want this to happen! I'm prepared to go without sleep/cash/food/thanks to get material written, rehearsed, recorded and gigged" - that's when my life always starts to get tricky. And putting up with rehearsals/writing/jam sessions that get cancelled at the last minute is the killer. I'm on my second gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, hope-smothering, tear-jerking cancellation this week. I suppose the more something means to you, the bigger deal you make of it.
I'm enjoying giving guitar lessons at the moment. I've started giving them again after a ten year absence - I didn't have the patience back then to deal with 12yr olds who only wanted to be able to play *whatever-song-was-in-the-charts-at-the-time* without actually wanting to learn about the guitar and music in general. I teach guitar as a martial art, with an emphasis upon certain truisms and philosophies that seem to get strangely overlooked by most music students. Most people seem really interested in this approach, and the best part of it is that it's not just beginners and novices that have signed up, I've had some experienced guitarists come to see how they can expand their ideas and techniques, too. As far as being "a teacher" goes, that pretty much makes my day. It's good for me to brush up on my theory too, I usually learn as much from the student as they do from me. A friend suggested to me that I consider giving performance coaching too, something I've done in the past but never really pushed any further than helping out the bands I've been in, or have been mates with. Half the time all it takes is an objective point of view to really help a band improve their "act", or even help them gain confidence in what they are doing. And I can put my hand on my heart and honestly say that I know what I'm talking about when I say that not enough people equate "gig" with "performance".
Maybe all this teaching is borne of frustration at not being able to actually rehearse enough to gig enough to record enough?
From "The Art of War" - "If you sit by the edge of the river for long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float past you."
Roughly translated: "Good things come to those who have the sheer bloody-mindedness and patience to shut up, sit tight and wait."

In some ways I can't wait 'till September is finished. I have this vision of me in my new house on October the first, just sitting on the sofa with a cold beer watching some utterly banal TV show or terrible mindless Hollywood teen comedy in a state of total relaxation and mental shut down.

Before then I have a gig to organise, rehearse for and play. Accommodation to find for the national/international visitors attending said gig. A new house to find, do references, contracts etc. for plus all the annoying bill crap. Got to cancel stuff, opening new accounts for utilities etc. (priority - getting sky sports and broadband sorted). Of course to make it easy my current landlord is out of the country the whole month and we can't contact him, someone even came to collect our keys for him yesterday thinking we were moving out end of August. At the same time I have a huge deadline at work and on top of all that the loo-seat's broken and I need to get a new bulb for the bathroom on the way home from work today. Don't be surprised if you read a story in the Evening Post about a man found crying in the corner of Sainsbury's Central by their shelf of bayonet light-bulbs unable to say anything but "I just need a screw". If that does happen can a ComEnt's reader please get in touch with the police and explain I'm not a crazy sex fiend? Thanks. Sainsbury's Central, such a mixed blessing, just about enough stuff to get dinner on the way home but not enough variety to make it interesting. And they only have bayonet lightbulbs unless you want a super energy efficient one that costs 10 times as much. What's the logic there? Screw bulb owners are more environmental than people with bayonet fittings? Sassinfrassin... Must. Remain. Calm.

On the plus side I found time to write lyrics for a song inspired by the immense stress combined with post-festival exhaustion yesterday. On the down side I have been to the pub so often in the last few weeks to relieve stress that I'm resembling one of those old tottering men who you see passed out in locals pubs at all times of the day. I am going to have to get a little mongrel dog to keep on a string and feed with scraps of crisps, nuts and (your cheapest) ale. Ever since I discovered that in the Turks lager was £1.54 and you could get a double gin and tonic for only 20p more than a single it seems too cheap not to go, plus they have a toilet with a seat so I can go for a poo. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I could actually stand being in my house.

Oh well, at least I'm not ill or being ethnically cleansed or bombed or shot at or anything. It'll all get sorted in the end.

In the middle of all the stress though, standing out like a beacon of happiness right smack in the middle of the month is the last Sonic Undermind gig. I can't wait! Things mostly organised, bands booked, kit share sorted. First press releases out. Rehearsal(s) booked, we thought we'd only be able to do one rehearsal but we've managed to sneak a mini rehearsal in there with most of the band. The line-up is looking awesome. Got loads of people we know coming and I have the day after off work. I forsee much hard rocking drunken fun!

Is it time to go to the pub yet?

In a breathtaking display of independent thinking, I did not go to Reading fest this year but I did manage to go to the Notting Hill carnival on Sunday which provided a lot of entertainment and a fair bit of walking - but was totally worth it. I lost my phone on Friday night, and the phone people didn't connect my new one (blagged like a champion as an upgrade on Sat afternoon) until Tuesday, so I basically jumped on a train up to London with my mates number scribbled onto a napkin. Once I got caught up with the million of other people who were in attendance, I realised that I had little or no chance of meeting up with anyone. Lucky for me there was a phone box that hadn't been vandalised, and so after getting hopelessly lost for half an hour I did finally manage to meet up with my friends in a bar called "Beach Babylon" which was great. Really fit women all over the place, great music, loads of cocktails, wicked carnival atmosphere. Wandered around, went to a few other places, had a good laugh all night.

I'd heard a lot about the muggings and incidents at the carnival but I have to say that we never felt anything other than a party atmosphere in any of the areas we went to, everyone was really friendly and up for a laugh. It was cool.

Wish I'd seen 38 Pence get bottled off stage though.

That is all.