Last weekend was boss! Tony and Toria and Mikey and Toria's friend Kristin were over and we spent the weekend ragging around Berlin on bicycles. That's definitely the bery best way to get around Berlin - I've pieced together so much of Berlin by getting lost loads of times and figuring it all out like a mad real life puzzle on a bike. We went to Hops and Barley which is my favourite pub here. They brew their own ales on site and they're most delicious. It's good fun to get well boozed up in there and then cycle home 5 miles or so. They also do amazing sausages dead cheap.
I worked at the o2 arena this week fixing up their ice hockey pitch for the game this weekend. I didn't enjoy it one little bit. They always say it's going to be about 8 hours but it's ALWAYS well more. My back is still killing me. Got up the next day dead early and went to play 5 a-side in the hassenheide park in Neukolln and the went to view a flat there which was really nice so I think we're going to apply for it.
Today has been pretty uneventful so far. I miss Soccer AM in the mornings on the couch with a massive cup of tea, then going to Cronton to play a match then coming home and going to DJ in Liquidation.
So far I've eaten 2 pieces of delicious bread. One with jam on it and one with cheese and tomato on it, some crisps and a bit of chocolate.
Tonight should be a laugh though because Pete Bentham, a good mate of mine from Liverpool, is over with his band Pete Bentham and the Dinner Ladies to play at Wild at Heart so i'm hopefully gonna catch up with James and go down there later to see some Bentham style punk 'n' roll and then spend the night drinking booze with Pete and then tomorrow hopefully watch Liverpool smash Man Utd in the gut with soccer power!
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Last few days of tour. Buckle up bonzo...you're going for a ride!
The last week of the tour was both absolutely amazing and utterly, utterly shit.
The last few gigs were great. The venue in Offenbach was probably one of the best venues I've ever played in - from the outside, it looked like a huge warehouse in the middle of an industrial estate way out of town but upon closer inspection it became apparent that it was actually a sort of magical hub for magical things. There was an outdoor cinema with hundreds of seats in the field opposite, there was a small farm with some sheep in it, we were shown to a room with about 8 beds in it and a fridge which was full of beer and on the stove was a huge pan which contained a massive delicious Thai curry. We were ready for all of this, especially the beds as we'd spent the last week on couches and blow-up mattresses. After we sound checked, the heavens opened right up and all the rain the sky had to offer came pouring down. We were worried that this would mean we would be playing to an empty room but when it came to the actual gig there was enough people in the room to make it a really nice gig.
One thing I enjoyed lots about this tour was playing twice a night, once with 28 Costumes and then again with Voo. Tony let me use his set up which was dead nice. It was ace to use his massive Gibson 333 for the Voo sets.
We were almost at the end of the tour now, winding our way to Berlin via the penultimate gig in Cologne. I think the Cologne gig was probably the best Costume gig of the tour. It was a kind of mini-festival with the Go! Team headlining (who were amazing to watch, actually, and thoroughly lovely people). James Slater was also there to film them so that was a nice surprise and Philipp, Edda's brother came along too with his friend. In the middle of 'Walking at pace uphills' the sleeping bit in the middle ended up being more of a screamy bit in the middle - it was fucking dead fun!! I kind of encouraged everyone to roar as loud as they could. A bit like primal scream therapy...it really worked. I felt good about things after it. We were given a flat to stay in after the gig so I took what I could from the rider (Bread, Meats, Cheeses, Waters for the morning) and headed back. We stayed up til something daft like 6am, or some of us did( Paul Jones, Did Spoons and myself) and then left for Berlin.
It was a long, long drive - I think it took us like 8 hours or something. It was great when we got there because Claire, Gray's girlfriend, Leah, Paul's girlfriend and Edda were all there in Berlin waiting for us. It felt a little bit like we'd been away for years, possibly at war or something. It was nice to see everyone and we had a boss night out in Berlin.
The gig in Berlin was a bit of a let down if I'm honest as I dropped a bit of klanger with the venue. I couldn't get anywhere to play before we went and I was trying loads of different places including places we'd played before but nobody was getting back to me so I panic booked and it was a place I'd never seen before which turned out to be some tiny basement, TINY basement with a tiny P.A. which had no mics. Paul Jones had already flew home because he got his dates mixed up so DAVID SPOONS stepped up to play bass in Voo for a few songs and did really well!! We spent the morning learning the songs in mine and by the time it came to playing them he was there, already on the next page. We actually ended up having really good gigs, despite the less than perfect situation/venue and headed off to get the fook out of dodge. In the morning the guys would be leaving for Liverpool and the tour would be over and this made me feel sad because I enjoyed this tour lots...especially after living in Berlin for the last 5 months and not seeing that much of my best mates.
It was around this time that things got really shitty. Both metaphorically and literally. John spent the night in ours after gig and from around 4/5am he was strapped to the bog. He was being sick alot. It sounded chilling when it happened. It really did. When the rest of us woke up it became obvious that John wasn't going to be travelling anywhere in any van. He was totally ill. We let him sleep for a bit hoping that he would feel btter after some rest but after a couple of hours he got up and told us to take him to the hospital. It was the right thing to do...as soon as we got him there the doctors told him and us that they would have to keep him in over night. Possibly two nights. In isolation. John had caught a norovirus which was highly contagious. He as ok by now, he was put on a drip to rehydrate him and was being looked after. Meanwhile back at the flat we were using all the disinfectents we could buy to make sure the flat, our van and anything else that had been in contact with 'the infected' was clean and safe. The van smelt like a hospital by the time we'd finished with it. It was alike a god damn zombie movie.
Paul Green and David Spoons stepped up to the plate and decided to leave in the van that night, without John in it. I think they drove something like 32 hours to get home.
John came out the next day, weak as a kitten but looking a lot better (the day before he was definitely very grey in the face). He was greeted with happy faces from Tony and I. Happy faces and smiles....from afar. We were paranoid about contracting this awful, highly contagious disease. We had dinner that night and John left Berlin by plane the net day.
Then there were 2. Me and Tone were still both very paranoid that we were still going to become infected...things were intense. Tony went to stay in a hostel to make sure.
As it happened, thankfully we were fine and went on and had a truly brilliant weekend biking through Berlin and drinking amazing lager with Toria, Tony's girlfriend who had come to visit and some other friends but I reckon that's enough for one blog so I'll leave that for enother time.
I enjoyed playing music again. I hadn't done it in anger for ages and it felt good. I think 28 Costumes will aim to record an EP before the year is out and play some more live shows soon too. We enjoyed it all too much. When Graham got home he called me to tell me the test pressings for the new album were there in Liverpool and he said it sounded off the charts. I did an interview for 6music about Hallo...I Love You! yesterday too so I should be feeling really good about things and I mostly am, but now it's time to get stuck into sorting what the fuck I need to do in Berlin to stay there...here goes.
The last few gigs were great. The venue in Offenbach was probably one of the best venues I've ever played in - from the outside, it looked like a huge warehouse in the middle of an industrial estate way out of town but upon closer inspection it became apparent that it was actually a sort of magical hub for magical things. There was an outdoor cinema with hundreds of seats in the field opposite, there was a small farm with some sheep in it, we were shown to a room with about 8 beds in it and a fridge which was full of beer and on the stove was a huge pan which contained a massive delicious Thai curry. We were ready for all of this, especially the beds as we'd spent the last week on couches and blow-up mattresses. After we sound checked, the heavens opened right up and all the rain the sky had to offer came pouring down. We were worried that this would mean we would be playing to an empty room but when it came to the actual gig there was enough people in the room to make it a really nice gig.
One thing I enjoyed lots about this tour was playing twice a night, once with 28 Costumes and then again with Voo. Tony let me use his set up which was dead nice. It was ace to use his massive Gibson 333 for the Voo sets.
We were almost at the end of the tour now, winding our way to Berlin via the penultimate gig in Cologne. I think the Cologne gig was probably the best Costume gig of the tour. It was a kind of mini-festival with the Go! Team headlining (who were amazing to watch, actually, and thoroughly lovely people). James Slater was also there to film them so that was a nice surprise and Philipp, Edda's brother came along too with his friend. In the middle of 'Walking at pace uphills' the sleeping bit in the middle ended up being more of a screamy bit in the middle - it was fucking dead fun!! I kind of encouraged everyone to roar as loud as they could. A bit like primal scream therapy...it really worked. I felt good about things after it. We were given a flat to stay in after the gig so I took what I could from the rider (Bread, Meats, Cheeses, Waters for the morning) and headed back. We stayed up til something daft like 6am, or some of us did( Paul Jones, Did Spoons and myself) and then left for Berlin.
It was a long, long drive - I think it took us like 8 hours or something. It was great when we got there because Claire, Gray's girlfriend, Leah, Paul's girlfriend and Edda were all there in Berlin waiting for us. It felt a little bit like we'd been away for years, possibly at war or something. It was nice to see everyone and we had a boss night out in Berlin.
The gig in Berlin was a bit of a let down if I'm honest as I dropped a bit of klanger with the venue. I couldn't get anywhere to play before we went and I was trying loads of different places including places we'd played before but nobody was getting back to me so I panic booked and it was a place I'd never seen before which turned out to be some tiny basement, TINY basement with a tiny P.A. which had no mics. Paul Jones had already flew home because he got his dates mixed up so DAVID SPOONS stepped up to play bass in Voo for a few songs and did really well!! We spent the morning learning the songs in mine and by the time it came to playing them he was there, already on the next page. We actually ended up having really good gigs, despite the less than perfect situation/venue and headed off to get the fook out of dodge. In the morning the guys would be leaving for Liverpool and the tour would be over and this made me feel sad because I enjoyed this tour lots...especially after living in Berlin for the last 5 months and not seeing that much of my best mates.
It was around this time that things got really shitty. Both metaphorically and literally. John spent the night in ours after gig and from around 4/5am he was strapped to the bog. He was being sick alot. It sounded chilling when it happened. It really did. When the rest of us woke up it became obvious that John wasn't going to be travelling anywhere in any van. He was totally ill. We let him sleep for a bit hoping that he would feel btter after some rest but after a couple of hours he got up and told us to take him to the hospital. It was the right thing to do...as soon as we got him there the doctors told him and us that they would have to keep him in over night. Possibly two nights. In isolation. John had caught a norovirus which was highly contagious. He as ok by now, he was put on a drip to rehydrate him and was being looked after. Meanwhile back at the flat we were using all the disinfectents we could buy to make sure the flat, our van and anything else that had been in contact with 'the infected' was clean and safe. The van smelt like a hospital by the time we'd finished with it. It was alike a god damn zombie movie.
Paul Green and David Spoons stepped up to the plate and decided to leave in the van that night, without John in it. I think they drove something like 32 hours to get home.
John came out the next day, weak as a kitten but looking a lot better (the day before he was definitely very grey in the face). He was greeted with happy faces from Tony and I. Happy faces and smiles....from afar. We were paranoid about contracting this awful, highly contagious disease. We had dinner that night and John left Berlin by plane the net day.
Then there were 2. Me and Tone were still both very paranoid that we were still going to become infected...things were intense. Tony went to stay in a hostel to make sure.
As it happened, thankfully we were fine and went on and had a truly brilliant weekend biking through Berlin and drinking amazing lager with Toria, Tony's girlfriend who had come to visit and some other friends but I reckon that's enough for one blog so I'll leave that for enother time.
I enjoyed playing music again. I hadn't done it in anger for ages and it felt good. I think 28 Costumes will aim to record an EP before the year is out and play some more live shows soon too. We enjoyed it all too much. When Graham got home he called me to tell me the test pressings for the new album were there in Liverpool and he said it sounded off the charts. I did an interview for 6music about Hallo...I Love You! yesterday too so I should be feeling really good about things and I mostly am, but now it's time to get stuck into sorting what the fuck I need to do in Berlin to stay there...here goes.
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
day 7
I'm sat in the living room in Alex and Katrin's house right now and David Spoons is sitting next to transforming Wuppertal SV slowly but surely into european contenders on Football Manager and Graham is writing in a book (actually he's not writing, he's just drawing pictures of dicks). Paul Green is showering listening to Madonna, Paul Jones has just returned after getting lost on a bike, Tony was doing some exercise upstairs and I haven't seen John Wallace all morning but I think he's catching up on some sleep.
We had a really quiet night last night. The night before we played a kind of acoustic show in Katrin's Dad's basement which was really incredible. We had such a laugh. His basement is basically like a little bar with loads of guitars and amps and a piano in. We mixed up all the songs so some were voo songs and some were 28 costumes songs and we played erika on the piano. When we finshed all our songs we covered a few and did Hungry Heart by The Boss, Aside by The Weakerthans, Blue Suede shoes with Katrin's dad on guitar and no-one else by Weezer.
When we got back to Alex's place we had such a boss time...it was mental! We were all dancing in the living room and going hell for leather on the booze. I think we got to sleep around 8 or so.
The gigs have been such good fun to play so far. The Ex-Haus gig was great and we made some more friends there I reckon - we invited a few people outside after sound check for a game of kubb. One of the lads was unbelievable at it.
Tonight we're playing in a cafe/record store in Trier and then tomorrow we leave Alex's house in the morning to go to Offenbach. I didn't realise that we would be staying here for so long, it's been a week now, but as always Alex and Katrin have looked after us so well and just been the perfect hosts and I genujnely feel lucky to be able to count them as friends.
It's a bit subdued in here today...everyone's either had to much sleep or not enough but we're leaving the house in a couple of hours to go the cafe...
Also, just had an offer to play another gig in Berlin with The Boss Hoss. They're a dead massive german band that dress like cowboys. GOD!
We had a really quiet night last night. The night before we played a kind of acoustic show in Katrin's Dad's basement which was really incredible. We had such a laugh. His basement is basically like a little bar with loads of guitars and amps and a piano in. We mixed up all the songs so some were voo songs and some were 28 costumes songs and we played erika on the piano. When we finshed all our songs we covered a few and did Hungry Heart by The Boss, Aside by The Weakerthans, Blue Suede shoes with Katrin's dad on guitar and no-one else by Weezer.
When we got back to Alex's place we had such a boss time...it was mental! We were all dancing in the living room and going hell for leather on the booze. I think we got to sleep around 8 or so.
The gigs have been such good fun to play so far. The Ex-Haus gig was great and we made some more friends there I reckon - we invited a few people outside after sound check for a game of kubb. One of the lads was unbelievable at it.
Tonight we're playing in a cafe/record store in Trier and then tomorrow we leave Alex's house in the morning to go to Offenbach. I didn't realise that we would be staying here for so long, it's been a week now, but as always Alex and Katrin have looked after us so well and just been the perfect hosts and I genujnely feel lucky to be able to count them as friends.
It's a bit subdued in here today...everyone's either had to much sleep or not enough but we're leaving the house in a couple of hours to go the cafe...
Also, just had an offer to play another gig in Berlin with The Boss Hoss. They're a dead massive german band that dress like cowboys. GOD!
Saturday, 21 August 2010
Day3 of tour
Yesterday was a dead good day - we went to grab some boss pasta with Alex and Katrin and then hit the park in Trier for some Kubb action. Kubb is one of them games that you just can't help but get totally involved in emotionally, spiritually and fucking fiercely when you play it! Needless to say I lost every game we played! It was Tony, John and me against Paul J, Gray and D.Spoons who tonked us every game. When Katrin and Somaeh turned up we grabbed them to play on our team and they can throw a kubb stick. It was dangerous and people nearly died. We played a wider and longer pitch which made even more exciting when you did actually throw successful Kubb.
I spent the morning learning new Voo songs with Gray and then teaching him how to play Inside/Outside, which took about 3 seconds. The we watched the highlights of the liverpool game then listened to paul play the keyboards to Erika which sounds mega and all that type of stuff.
Tonight we're playing in Luxembourg and we're leaving in a minute so I better go and help pack the van.
Last time we played at this venue they had one of those sound limiters that knocks all the gear off if we play over a certain level. It went off before we even played a note last time and the police turned up half way through our gig. One thing that was boss about it though is that the promoter took us to this amazing Italian restaurant and got all of us some tasty meals and delicious red wineand then me and gray wrote a sexy song in the back of the van afterwards. I hope it's as exciting this time.
BYEEEEEE x
I spent the morning learning new Voo songs with Gray and then teaching him how to play Inside/Outside, which took about 3 seconds. The we watched the highlights of the liverpool game then listened to paul play the keyboards to Erika which sounds mega and all that type of stuff.
Tonight we're playing in Luxembourg and we're leaving in a minute so I better go and help pack the van.
Last time we played at this venue they had one of those sound limiters that knocks all the gear off if we play over a certain level. It went off before we even played a note last time and the police turned up half way through our gig. One thing that was boss about it though is that the promoter took us to this amazing Italian restaurant and got all of us some tasty meals and delicious red wineand then me and gray wrote a sexy song in the back of the van afterwards. I hope it's as exciting this time.
BYEEEEEE x
Friday, 20 August 2010
Tour Days 1 and 2
We started off the tour of Germany with a gig for Voo in Tunbridge Wells at The Forum. It was a dead special gig because it was supporting The Wedding Present which is, for me and Paul Jones, one of our favourite ever bands. They were incredible and I also think it was the best we've played, certainly since I've been in the band. We had a good chat with David Gedge too afterwards who is just a lovely fella and boxed us off with a few beers from their rider to boot!
We left the next morning and arrived in calais at round 2pm and made it to trier at around 10pm after getting a bit lost and ending up travelling alongside a canal for a bit, complete with fishermen and everything. It defo wasn't the right way to Germany.
The van is small there's not much room to be swinging cats but luckly for us were not after that, we just need to sit in it. It goes and it goes well (so far) which is the most important thing. We stayed up til 4 or 5 last night drinking boss german lager and having a laugh and right now we're going to go into Trier. I'm still half asleep so apologies if it's not that funny or interesting...hopefully after a cup of coffee I'll perk up a bit. Or a beer.
We left the next morning and arrived in calais at round 2pm and made it to trier at around 10pm after getting a bit lost and ending up travelling alongside a canal for a bit, complete with fishermen and everything. It defo wasn't the right way to Germany.
The van is small there's not much room to be swinging cats but luckly for us were not after that, we just need to sit in it. It goes and it goes well (so far) which is the most important thing. We stayed up til 4 or 5 last night drinking boss german lager and having a laugh and right now we're going to go into Trier. I'm still half asleep so apologies if it's not that funny or interesting...hopefully after a cup of coffee I'll perk up a bit. Or a beer.
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
list
Haven't got much time to write this so just a quick one. I've been to Wuppertal, Munster, Saerbeck, Dusseldorf and now I'm in Liverpool. I've been on boat to party, been to watch a game of football, seen Philipp, Carmen, Rolf, Briggitte, Udo, Udo's son and his son's and his wife, taught Philipp and his friends the Fernando Torres song and sung it non stop for 3 days, seen Dan Hanks and Claudia who should be back now but we're staying at our place and had a dead nice coupla nights with them, said goodbye to edda (boo) for three weeks...
Now I'm about to go out to meet gray and practise with voo.
Now I'm about to go out to meet gray and practise with voo.
Sunday, 1 August 2010
Owls are NOT stupid.
I'm sat in my living room. It's 8.58am local time and I've just ate a Brotchen (cob of bread) bought minutes ago and baked an hour ago from the shop downstairs. I'm considering whether to go and make a coffee but I've just remembered that we have no milk so that puts an end to that consideration. I'm also considering ending my blog right here. Nah, I won't do that but I haven't felt like writing this much the last week purely because I haven't really done that much. Work has dried right up and I'm still waiting to be paid so I've not had any money to be going out so much, although Edda has taken me to a few decent places...one of them being the zoo! I haven't been to a zoo since I was dead young...definitely more than 10 years ago. It was magic. The bestest bit was obviously the monkeys but the brown bear was also boss. It's definitely a bit sad though too - I know some of the animals wouldn't be alive it weren't for zoos and stuff but when the masive birds like owls and eagles need to fly, not live in a cage. They eagle in particular looked very sad. i kept on imagining my friend John Wallace doing his impression of an owl when I was looking at the owl because he does such an accurate impression of an owl in flight. I thought of that and I also thought of Alan Partridge too which is funny because sometimes John is alot like Alan Partirdge. John hates owls.
One good thing about not working so much recently is that I've had loads of time during the day to write new stuff so I've been doing lots of that. Mostly for Silent Sleep, which is the project I started just to do some gigs on my own out here. They're all really sad songs and really quiet too. I'm off my head though because one hour of the day I'm writing these songs and getting dead excited about them and playing shows but then the next hour I'll start planning some 28 Costumes stuff and get dead excited about that but then the next hour I'll be thinking about Hallo...I Love You! and then thinking of new ideas for that. I can never stick to one thing for more than an hour or so. My concentration span is tiny. Like an owls brain.
I'm going home soon which is going to be nice. First off I'm going to Wuppertal to watch the first game of the season against Munster, which is kind of a derby I think and then we're heading to Saerbeck again to see Edda's dad for a few days and then I'm flying from Bremen to Liverpool. I'm really looking forward to seeing all my mates and my mum and my brother and sister. It's weird - I feel like I've been away for YEARS and it's only been 4 months. Playing a gig on the 12th in Mello with Voo and then on the 18th we're supporting THE WEDDING PRESENT!! I still can't actually believe this is happening. The Wedding Present are on eof my favourite ever bands and loads of the reason why I write songs the way I do and we're supproting them. It's going to be off it's head. The day after this Voo and 28 Costumes are going to Germany to tour!! It's going to be such a good month. When I get back I'll be shooting the first video as Silent Sleep too for a song called 'Come! Let us run away!' and it's a really sad and fairytaley affair.
Dan's coming this week...YERSE!
One good thing about not working so much recently is that I've had loads of time during the day to write new stuff so I've been doing lots of that. Mostly for Silent Sleep, which is the project I started just to do some gigs on my own out here. They're all really sad songs and really quiet too. I'm off my head though because one hour of the day I'm writing these songs and getting dead excited about them and playing shows but then the next hour I'll start planning some 28 Costumes stuff and get dead excited about that but then the next hour I'll be thinking about Hallo...I Love You! and then thinking of new ideas for that. I can never stick to one thing for more than an hour or so. My concentration span is tiny. Like an owls brain.
I'm going home soon which is going to be nice. First off I'm going to Wuppertal to watch the first game of the season against Munster, which is kind of a derby I think and then we're heading to Saerbeck again to see Edda's dad for a few days and then I'm flying from Bremen to Liverpool. I'm really looking forward to seeing all my mates and my mum and my brother and sister. It's weird - I feel like I've been away for YEARS and it's only been 4 months. Playing a gig on the 12th in Mello with Voo and then on the 18th we're supporting THE WEDDING PRESENT!! I still can't actually believe this is happening. The Wedding Present are on eof my favourite ever bands and loads of the reason why I write songs the way I do and we're supproting them. It's going to be off it's head. The day after this Voo and 28 Costumes are going to Germany to tour!! It's going to be such a good month. When I get back I'll be shooting the first video as Silent Sleep too for a song called 'Come! Let us run away!' and it's a really sad and fairytaley affair.
Dan's coming this week...YERSE!
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