First show... in retrospect...

Right then - we played our first live show as a 5 piece this week as we lined up for Sir Alex MacHorton (he's not really a Sir, but his name suits it I think) at 93 Feet East this Wednesday night.

A bunch of new songs, a few classics (ha!) and away we went. It went great. Helped along by Bri on the desk making us sound better than we deserve to, we were pretty happy with it. I wasn't as comfortable as normal, but I think that's just because we haven't played much recently. I thought I wasn't as funny as normal. I still made myself laugh though, which is genuinely the main thing!

I wanted to say a huge thanks to everyone who came out to see us play - family, friends, randoms, we seriously appreciate it. It's all too easy to stay home with your feet up (or down, your choice), especially on a Wednesday night, so thanks to all for coming out. The Comans, the Stacey's, the Fitzgerald family on mass, Paul Jackson, the Price and Isy, Katie, Niko and Will - and everyone else (sorry for missing names, this could set an impossible precedent, which I would secretly love. not so secret now).

So it's onwards and upwards with new shows coming out of our ears. We've just booked a show at Catch 22 for Guy who scouts for American Recordings. That should be fun, it's mid August on a Tuesday night, so we'll be counting on you good people to come out on a school night and wave your bits around (preferably in time. we'll try to be in time if you do).

In other news, Stevie B is happy to stay in the band after coming through his first gig! Which is great news, because he's ace on the bass and a lovely fella too - a rare and valuable combo.

We started working on Troubled Faces in rehearsal the night before the gig, and it just started falling together beautifully straight away. So tempting to stay there all night to finish it, but we've learned that we should let the tunes rest a little sometimes... but we'll hopefully get it together, if not for the show on the 17th at All Teeth @ The Buffalo Bar in Highbury then for the show after that at the Enterprise. It's a great tune already though - the verses and bridge-bit feel like they're really pulling on the reigns, just waiting to be unleashed, so we've been working on a chorus that lets that happen.

We also know that we haven't given you any new recordings for ages, so we'll be getting demo's of these new tracks done ASAP to send out to you - keep bugging me about it!!

Here's us at the gig on Wednesday - photo by Katie Keys (www.twitter.com/tinylittlepoems)

Writin' and Recordin'

Woodshedding it over this long weekend. Aside from the 241 little ideas recorded into my old phone - fortunately not lost when the phone died, then was 'fixed' by 3, died again etc, etc - there are a bunch of new ideas floating around that I'm getting Pro-Tooled up about.

One is called 'I Honestly Believe' which started out as a bit of a country-Paul-Simon-Graceland type tune but is moving already into a more Vampire Weekend type feel, though maybe a little dancier than that.

I just finished demo'ing another track that doesn't have a name yet, but the verse is currently banging on about 'troubled faces', so that'll do for now. I guess it's a kind of Kings of Leon mixed with John Spencer Blues Explosion and some almost gospel backing vocals, like we're doing now in City Girls. Loving that one already

There's some other non-DOTV tracks I'm working on too because I can't get them out of my head!

Gotta stop procrastinating on here and get back to it though...

Let me know if you want to hear some rough demos of these new ones.

First show as a 5-piece

We've got a bunch of new tracks, but fittingly for this post, one of them is called Long Time Coming. It seriously has been a damn long time since we played any show - firstly because we were rehearsing as a 5-piece, and then, the night before our first show at the Dublin Castle... I broke my arm!

I'd never broken any bones before, and in the last year I've done two while playing football. This should be a lesson to all Australians. Stick. To. What. We. Know. Aussie rules all the way then - especially with the Dockers kicking seven shades out of everyone this year.

Not too surprisingly I've gone off the topic a little. Right, so the arm is healed and we've spent about a month rehearsing up again, with a few new tunes, the best of which I think is Long Time Coming. It's a pretty epic tune by our three minute standards, features some dirty synth for the first time, some half time and a rather 70's prog-awesome waltz time ending. If that doesn't get you excited then... well, I didn't really make it sound incredible so you'd best just pop along and see the show.

We are really going to try and do things a little differently, a little special each time we play. Lefsetz has got me all a-thinking, and the balance of things that you need to actually get somewhere while having fun playing is being slowly addressed. I don't want to make you all feel that you have to come out and see us because you're our friends. I want you to see us and be so into what we do that you want to see us every gig and want to bring your friends along too. No niche, no selling out, just magnificent. We're not there yet, but we will be!

The first show is this Wednesday at the lovely 93 Feet East on Brick Lane in East London. It's for Alex Mac from Glasswerk who has stood by us for many years and who we love dearly. We're onstage at 9.30pm and we'd love it if you came down to see what we're up to and see if you're into it.

You'd better be into it, or else.