ComEnts

I imagine I'll fail again, but I'm going to try.

I have a CD + other information winging my way to me from a Dutch guy in a band. As Martin suggested in his comment the other day it is proving quite hard to find decent Dutch bands. My approach so far has been mainly internet based. When I used to try this kind of thing looking for bands to gig swap with in other towns in the UK it was really easy. On the other hand, I can read the English equivalents of Josaka in other towns, because they aren't in Dutch. Hmm.

Trawling MySpace for Dutch bands is a bit of a thankless task. When I find one that sounds good it turns out they are signed, quite big and touring. There was some small controversy on Berkshire Live recently after Linda from BBC Berkshire posted the link to Colin Murray's comments on unsigned bands. I thought a lot of what he said was very true, and some was lighthearted (it's definitely worth listening to the full audio version of the interview). Amongst his comments was "There's no such thing as an unsigned band who are brilliant - the brilliant ones get signed." There's definitely some truth in that in the UK (although some brilliant bands aren't signed, yet) but in The Netherlands it seems that there's no such thing as a decent unsigned band, all the decent ones are signed.

Don't worry though, when I find one I'll be telling you they are the best thing ever!

And now it's bank holiday weekend so probably no update until Tuesday. Already I have failed my new resolution.

So, this last week I are been mostly ill. I was still working because I had way too much to do not to come in, but managed to miss the Danko Jones gig I'd been looking forward to for ages, the Rebus & friends secret gig that clashed with it and a Left Side Brain gig in Bristol.

Still, that doesn't mean everything was at a standstill. Oh no! Things are still moving along nicely for the Dutch tour. We think it'd be a good idea to find some local bands to help us with organising things, especially with contacts / venues and getting a crowd. In return we can get put them on or put them in contact with people to play a gig or two over here.

So, with that in mind, whilst I was lazing at home in bed feeling a bit crap my Dutch friend was out getting drunk at one of the potential venues for the Rotterdam leg of the tour and meeting musicians.

Unfortunately the only information he had this morning was some e-mail addresses. He was too drunk to remember the names of the people, or their band, whether they were playing at the night he was at or not or any other useful information.

So, I am reassured to know that we have like minded individuals organising every aspect of the tour and have dispatched "I don't know who you are but this drunk gave me your address. Do you want to help me put on a Dutch tour?" e-mails to the relevant people.

One of my ambitions has always to go on a European tour of some kind. I don't currently have a band so that's tricky... however I seem to have talked myself into arranging one for another band. They took my crazy idea seriously and now I'm trying to work out the logistics of the whole thing.

Theoretically, it will be totally awesome.

If anyone knows any cool Dutch bands or promoters let me know!

Is to invite Six Nation State to play, that way you guarantee that Gerry will tell everyone where and when it is and who's playing, so there's no chance of anyone missing it.

Unfortunately I'm going to miss this Wednesday's secret gig because I'm going to Oxford to see Danko Jones. I can't believe they clash! ARGH!

If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm not going to tell you because it's a secret (not so that I can feel all smug, in-crowdy and superior. Honest).

You should be able to find the answer within the gig section of Berkshire Live fairly quickly.

Last time White Sunday ventured up to our rehearsal studio in London we were munching some food in the canteen and in walked Lewis Taylor. It was only years and years of formal education and training that prevented me from spitting my food out across the table in surprise/shock. I didn't say anything, and he wandered out again fairly shortly afterwards, but I saw him in the reception area later on and stopped him to ask if he was indeed his bad self. He was. I told him I was a big fan of his, shook his hand and walked off - leaving him grinning.

There were several ways this meeting could have gone: I could have hugged him and sobbed gently onto his shoulder that I thought his music contained some of the most beautiful, soulful and moving songs ever written, that they had seen me through some difficult times (as well as figuring largely in some of my best times, too) and that I thought he was the greatest guitarist I'd ever seen/heard play live. I could have dropped to my knees and thanked him, or buried him under an avalanche of questions regarding his thoughts, his plans for the future or just his opinions on life in general. I could - and probably should - have held a gun to his head and forced him to promise to play more gigs, write/record more material or I'll-blow-you-away-you-teasing-sum'bitch!

But I didn't, mostly because my brain froze but a little because I knew that LT likes nothing more than to be treated like an average Joe, a regular nobody - which is exactly how he sees himself. Well, OK - maybe not a "nobody", but certainly not someone who is famous, a star, a celebrity or suchlike. His real name is Andrew, he used his middle name - Lewis - as his nom du stave (it has been pointed out that, as a white man playing what can conveniently be pigeonholed as "black music", the "Lewis" cap fits the wearer more marketably than "Andrew") and I saw him make the momentary adjustment to being called "Lewis" when I spoke to him. Whatever, my point is that I left him smiling because I didn't weird him out, or make him feel uncomfortable. I suspect he was double-chuffed that I had taken up no more than five seconds of his time, and hadn't asked for an autograph or photo. As I walked away he was grinning, and I think that deep down that is what anyone wants from a meeting with their idols, heros, whatever: the chance to say thanks and to try and make them feel good in the way that their whatever-they-do makes you feel good.

Damn, I wish I had taken a photo of the two of us. Everyone knows that short-of-stature, shaven-headed guitar heros are the pinnacle of coolness, and that sightings of two of them next to each other are rare. Still, next time I see him at the studio I will be assuming that I can address him as "Andy" and will be looking for some high-fives from him as well. Don't leave me hanging, brother!

There is an English band called A. I like A's first couple of albums, they are upbeat catchy British pop-punk with a sense of humour and it's good fun summer listening. That was before they went all nu-metal with what admittedly became their biggest single. Now, I can't remember what that single was called and I would have liked to include that bit of information in this post. What I would normally do in this situation is use google to search for it. But, the band is called A.

Do you know what happens if you google for A?

"Results 1 - 10 of about 24,900,000,000"

25 billion results! Searching for A band reduces it to six hundred million. What about The The? Even if you quote "The The" you get sixty million hits.

These are extreme examples but it is really nice if you can search for the name of the band you are interested and find them in the top couple of hits.

The web is such a useful tool these days I think that when you are naming your band you have to think about how web friendly it is. It should already be standard practice to search for your potential name and see if there's another band with the same name, but at the same time why not see what else there is out there with the same keywords.

Although I do admit this might mean you end up being in bands with really stupid names like I have.

I've just been reading the BBC site and it seems that some bloggers managed to get free wine just by being people who regularly updated their blog site! (full story here). Why wasn't I informed?

If anyone from Stormhoek is watching or searching for their own name, or whatever, I'd like you to know that not only am I very interested in wine but also in South African culture. I've seen Cry Freedom and I watched Lethal Weapon 2 the other day. Maybe they'll do their 100 dinners thing in Europe then we can organise one.

I'll just take a second to recommend that anyone who has any interest in live music at all makes sure they go to the Rebus CD launch party on Saturday night. It's going to be stunning. The full Josaka preview is here. AK mentioned the other day how good the Six Nation State launch party was and both Rebus and Six Nation State are playing again. Six Nation State have just signed to Jeepster, home of Snow Patrol, and I'm sure Rebus can't be far behind them with getting a decent deal. I've been a fan since I first saw them but they have taken it to another level recently. (don't tell them I said that, it'll only go to their heads).

What with that, My Luminaries celebrating their signing to V2 this week, the success of Morning Runner and the news that SinTuition and Exit 10 are playing at Download festival it seems that the country at large is catching up to this "Reading on Fire" thing that we've been banging on about.

Hopefully Reading Fringe Festival can push that message even harder.

This has only just occurred to me. I don't know why it has, but it has.

You know the movie Devil's Advocate with Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino? Well... do you think that the writer was one day thinking, "Oh, Devil's Advocate, that kind of sounds like the Devil has an attorney... whoa dude, that's crazy, I'm gonna write a movie about it!". If so, is that clever or stupid? (such a fine line).

Anyway, I'm back from New York. Busy as hell with everything here, work and play. You aren't interested in my work, I'm sure, so more about the fun stuff. The Fringe Festival has a launch party on Wednesday. See here for tickets if you want to come. We had a meeting about it last night and it all sounds very exciting.

I hope that we get some more volunteers to help out of the launch party, there is incredible potential this year. I mean, last year was great we did a lot in the time we had but this year has the potential to be incredibly exciting if we can get all the stuff we want to do off the ground. One bonus is that Paul C, who basically co-ordinated us all for last years fringe, is now going to be available to join in this year. Which is fantastic. He, strangely, doesn't appreciate quite how much he did last year for the fringe but it's great to have him back!

We are also trying to work out what is going to happen with the next Screwball Cabaret. Planning a diverse line-up where we think all the bands are great and including some local talent (who haven't already played) is an interesting challenge.

The Müf EP is sounding amazing, the only remaining part of it is to record the vocals to Tüf Lüf (a working title, as yet to be approved by anyone but myself). The song is dark and enigmatic (I thought about calling it "Moira Stewart") and I haven't got a clue what to sing over the top. We may post it as it is on our website and ask people to email in their suggestions for lyrics, etc. cos I'm just about done in trying to think of some suitable syllables.

Who'd be a singer, eh?

The Six Nation State launch party on Friday was out of this world, I'm doing a review as soon as I can (i.e. today?) but if you weren't there, you'll never know how good it was. Brilliant.