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.