Monday, April 30, 2007
Pics as promised
On the bus on the way to Bracknell
Upcdowncleftcrightcabcandstart at the Wilde Theatre
Six Nation State at the Wilde Theatre
Another crazy weekend
It'd be nice if things happened gradually spread out over the week instead of all at once.
Friday: Went to South Hill Park in Bracknell to see Six Nation State, My Luminaries, Upcdowncleftcrightcabcandstart and The Trouble With Me. It was a really fun evening. Josaka put the gig on and they had a bus take us from Reading station to Bracknell and then back again. Which was great. A straw poll of people on the bus said that most of us wouldn't have gone if it wasn't for the bus. It's a real shame, The Wilde Theatre at South Hill Park is a great location, but it's a real pain to get to. I have some great pictures, which I might be able to get off my phone if it stops pissing about.
Saturday: Saw a load of houses, put an offer in on one and had it accepted! Woo!
Sunday: Started off the day with a trip to hobbycraft to buy materials for some signs. Joey Ultra have a (top secret) photo shoot before our rehearsal tonight so we'll see how that goes.
After spending the day covering our floor with paint and signs I went to the Oakford for a couple of drinks, and so that my girlfriend could return Jon Six Nation State's hat. Then it was on to the Rising Sun Arts Centre to be part of Pete and the Pirates new video. I would say it was cool but a combination of a hot spring day, some big lights and 50 people dancing like crazy meant it was absolutely boiling. Good to be part of it though. We stayed for about three and a half hours until 8:30 before the weekend caught up with us and we retired home for chinese food and sleep.
Plans for the week include photo shoot/rehearsal tonight, finding solicitors, talking about mortgages and surveys, Chelsea vs Liverpool tomorrow (and then hopefully the Pirates at the Face bar), a friend's birthday on Friday and then off to Dublin for bank holiday! Woo!
I'll put pictures up later if I can.
Friday: Went to South Hill Park in Bracknell to see Six Nation State, My Luminaries, Upcdowncleftcrightcabcandstart and The Trouble With Me. It was a really fun evening. Josaka put the gig on and they had a bus take us from Reading station to Bracknell and then back again. Which was great. A straw poll of people on the bus said that most of us wouldn't have gone if it wasn't for the bus. It's a real shame, The Wilde Theatre at South Hill Park is a great location, but it's a real pain to get to. I have some great pictures, which I might be able to get off my phone if it stops pissing about.
Saturday: Saw a load of houses, put an offer in on one and had it accepted! Woo!
Sunday: Started off the day with a trip to hobbycraft to buy materials for some signs. Joey Ultra have a (top secret) photo shoot before our rehearsal tonight so we'll see how that goes.
After spending the day covering our floor with paint and signs I went to the Oakford for a couple of drinks, and so that my girlfriend could return Jon Six Nation State's hat. Then it was on to the Rising Sun Arts Centre to be part of Pete and the Pirates new video. I would say it was cool but a combination of a hot spring day, some big lights and 50 people dancing like crazy meant it was absolutely boiling. Good to be part of it though. We stayed for about three and a half hours until 8:30 before the weekend caught up with us and we retired home for chinese food and sleep.
Plans for the week include photo shoot/rehearsal tonight, finding solicitors, talking about mortgages and surveys, Chelsea vs Liverpool tomorrow (and then hopefully the Pirates at the Face bar), a friend's birthday on Friday and then off to Dublin for bank holiday! Woo!
I'll put pictures up later if I can.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Craziest day ever
So, as all you regular readers know Saturday was the day of Joey Ultra's big gig. Second ever gig for the band, and the second ever gig for our drummer and singer. Huge! The line-up was dauntingly good. I felt like it was a bit like an episode of Faking It. 3 extremely talented bands, major labels turning up to see 2 of them and Joey Ultra, who've only ever played once before, in a small pub in Reading. It was the biggest gig I've done since 2003 and I was getting pretty nervous before we went on! Great, haven't felt nervous about a gig for ages.In the end we played ok, we were first on but not until 9:30pm, by which point Sam and I had imbibed rather too many shandies. It's quite hard to say Asahi when you've had a few of them. The two of us made quite a lot of drunken mistakes that apparently no-one in the crowd noticed. The rest of the band did well though. There's a video below so you can judge for yourselves!
Of the other bands, Rebus were brilliant, one of their best gigs for a long time. Their single This City is available for pre-order now. Kicks sounded exactly like they do on CD live. Quite poppy guitar music and I reckon they'll sell a lot of records. OK Tokyo seemed to split opinion, I thought they were good though.
Labels: Joey Ultra, Kicks, OK Tokyo, Rebus, video
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Into the office, coffee no sugar
SATURDAY!
We've only got 4 days until the gig now. Very scary. On the plus side our rehearsal last night was the best we've ever played. If we can pull it off like that at the gig, then I think we'll do ok.
Apparently some people have had an unauthorised listen to our 'just so we can remember how the songs go' demos that we recorded the other day. Gah. We really need to get some proper recordings done ASAP so we can get people to listen to them. The recordings we have are pretty bad, mainly because of bad performances. We did them all in one take but the performances were partly bad due to the terrible sound which was due to the primitive way we were recording. I won't tell anyone how we did it, because they'll be too shocked. Next time we'll just have to remember to blag a mixer from somewhere, and take some proper headphones!
We've only got 4 days until the gig now. Very scary. On the plus side our rehearsal last night was the best we've ever played. If we can pull it off like that at the gig, then I think we'll do ok.
Apparently some people have had an unauthorised listen to our 'just so we can remember how the songs go' demos that we recorded the other day. Gah. We really need to get some proper recordings done ASAP so we can get people to listen to them. The recordings we have are pretty bad, mainly because of bad performances. We did them all in one take but the performances were partly bad due to the terrible sound which was due to the primitive way we were recording. I won't tell anyone how we did it, because they'll be too shocked. Next time we'll just have to remember to blag a mixer from somewhere, and take some proper headphones!
Friday, April 13, 2007
Hard House
So the reason I haven't been posting much recently, is that we (me and my girlfriend) are trying to buy a house, and that seems to be taking up a huge amount of time. Who knew?
Joey Ultra's first proper full on gig is 8 days away, we've got 2 more lined up for June and August, still haven't got any recordings we'd let anyone hear so that's not bad going I guess? With a complete lack of any music to comment on our press has been... interesting. Most people seem to be focusing on Binz, our singer, which is good. He's been described as a "local celebrity", "sex fiend" and "infamous...mates with Gordon Brown" so far. I have no idea where the mates with Gordon Brown thing comes from.
We've got 1 rehearsal left before showtime, stuff is mostly sounding pretty good I hope. I'm quite nervous because as I mentioned before the line-up is amazing.
Joey Ultra's first proper full on gig is 8 days away, we've got 2 more lined up for June and August, still haven't got any recordings we'd let anyone hear so that's not bad going I guess? With a complete lack of any music to comment on our press has been... interesting. Most people seem to be focusing on Binz, our singer, which is good. He's been described as a "local celebrity", "sex fiend" and "infamous...mates with Gordon Brown" so far. I have no idea where the mates with Gordon Brown thing comes from.
We've got 1 rehearsal left before showtime, stuff is mostly sounding pretty good I hope. I'm quite nervous because as I mentioned before the line-up is amazing.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Acoustic + Blah Blah
Last night at rehearsal we spotted the new issue of Blah Blah (local entertainment listings magazine) as we were leaving. Paul opened it at the center pages to find that our gig is in there in the previews. Pretty good write up of us considering hardly anyone has seen us or knows much about us. It was mentioned that local celeb Binz is our singer. Great to see that he's a local celeb in the press now!
Reading the line-up back in the preview it's pretty awesome. Rebus launching their single and also on the bill are OK Tokyo who have apparently generated a lot of interest. Their recordings sound really great judging by the stuff on their site. If that wasn't enough we're also playing with Kicks who I haven't seen since the Nokia 'win a chance to play at the Reading Festival' thing at the Fez last summer. They were very good then though. Recordings also great. Scary! 3 very professional bands and us... not only is this only our second gig but for two of the members of Joey Ultra it's their second gig with any band. That sounds like the plot of a Fakin' It episode doesn't it? Get Channel 4 on the phone!
On the plus side, last couple of rehearsals have been sounding really good. We've pretty much shelved Indy Disco which we all really like in theory but in practice it's almost impossible to play well.
Also, we're tentatively working on our acoustic set. We are planning to try and do a song or two at Bohemian Night (open mic night at the BBBs) on Thursday. After all, there's no school on Friday and maybe if that goes ok we can play the After Dark acoustic thing.
Club Velocity, 21st April, Plug'n'Play, Milford Road, Reading.
Reading the line-up back in the preview it's pretty awesome. Rebus launching their single and also on the bill are OK Tokyo who have apparently generated a lot of interest. Their recordings sound really great judging by the stuff on their site. If that wasn't enough we're also playing with Kicks who I haven't seen since the Nokia 'win a chance to play at the Reading Festival' thing at the Fez last summer. They were very good then though. Recordings also great. Scary! 3 very professional bands and us... not only is this only our second gig but for two of the members of Joey Ultra it's their second gig with any band. That sounds like the plot of a Fakin' It episode doesn't it? Get Channel 4 on the phone!
On the plus side, last couple of rehearsals have been sounding really good. We've pretty much shelved Indy Disco which we all really like in theory but in practice it's almost impossible to play well.
Also, we're tentatively working on our acoustic set. We are planning to try and do a song or two at Bohemian Night (open mic night at the BBBs) on Thursday. After all, there's no school on Friday and maybe if that goes ok we can play the After Dark acoustic thing.
Club Velocity, 21st April, Plug'n'Play, Milford Road, Reading.
Labels: Joey Ultra
