Sorry for the loooooong time between updates. We got back from the states a few weeks ago and everything has been a bit hectic since. Anyway, I managed to cobble together some video footage from the tour. It was one of the best things we’ve done as a band. Almost all the gigs were incredible and we’ll be doing our utmost to get back asap.
That being said, it’s now important for us to lock ourselves away and try to write a new record. It’s been nearly two years since Animals was released and we’re desperate to do something new. We’ve got Truck Festival coming up and perhaps one other festival up north somewhere (more news on that if/when it’s a bit more confirmed) and then that is it until we can get some new tracks together that we’re happy with.
Start Oxford 5:30
I awoke with a bruise on my elbow.
The first thing I can remember from sleep was being on the set of ‘Who’s The Boss’ starring Tony Danza.
We collected Stu at 6:30am.
Belgium
Keep left.
Stay in the left lane.
Stay in the left lane.
Keep left.
etc.
Holland - Groningen - Viadukt
I spent a majority of the evening weighing up the consequences of helping myself to a rather nice Trail of Dead poster, screen printed on a nice thick stock. It wasn’t really such an issue but the manager of the venue taped it to the wall and he had his keen eye on me, perhaps I have a shit poker face; it was as if we both knew we were martial arts experts and one was waiting for the other to throw the first dragon punch. I finally took the poster down, removed the aforementioned gaffer tape and put it down to being in the name of artwork. I used all of my beer tokens despite not actually wanting to drink; I am no fan Grolsch at the best of times but as I am unsure carbonated water exists in the flatlands, it was that or ride the waves of dehydration.
The venue was pretty much awesome. There is an arts council which fund venues and gigs, the venue itself was under a bypass, or the Dutch equivalent, hence the name. There was backlit-with-red-lights tree bark on the wall at the back of the stage.
The gig went well, although the bass guitar hit a symbol, went out of tune and started to sound like a wounded seagull mid Gibbon. The set was fun, however some witty, enterprising young gentleman shouted ‘gazelle’. Actually he didn’t shout ‘gazelle’; instead opting for something a little less creative, like ’spider’. Or he could’ve been making a reference to Van der Valk, episode 5 whereby a woman is slain with the poison of the bird eating spider. Anyway, he was a mere parody of a comedian. The manager of the bar reminded me of a dutch Keifer Sutherland, sans-attitude, sans-muscles, although he had a nice mature number hanging off of his arm, because he could. I imagine she was addicted to his musk.
Typical Dutch person: “Hey! Look! That van is yellow, I can’t believe what my eyes are seeing, maybe”. This provided Chris and I with something to laugh about. The windows of the back of the van are blacked out, therefore we can see Dutch drivers getting totally smoked out at our yellow van. I have started to hallucinate due to hunger; I had some toast this morning, I brought my own marmite - which sounds like a much applied euphemism at a Turkish orgy - but it isn’t.
We collected all of the amplifiers and other things synonymous with playing a gig and were greeted by a metal band drinking beer outside the venue at about 1400hrs. Rad one. We stopped, despite a distinct lack of the halting of our yellow van, at a services named ‘SCORE’ only to leave straight away.
I feel like I should tell the Dutch authorities that a number of their wind turbines are not actually turning. I think I saw a single one in about 53 which was functioning. Perhaps they rely on an aggressive man hooked up to a kinetic generator called Peit (the aggressive man I mean), to supply their ample cities with the power to rehearse heavy metal. I have shown a lack of knowledge about green energy, then again I know nothing of the innards of a combustion engine either.
Hello. I spoke to Dan at Faux Discx (who are releasing ‘Animals’ on vinyl) the other day and it looks like there has been a bit of a cock up at the pressing plant. Dan now expects the record to arrive in the next couple of weeks. I’m really sorry for the delay. Hopefully it won’t be too long now.
We’ve started getting more and more reviews in for ‘Animals’. Some better than others, but it has been encouraging to see how quick people are to jump to our defence in the odd instance where we’ve got a bad review.
It’s strange…when we wrote ‘Animals’ we knew that we didn’t want to write 10+ different versions of 26 and we put a fair amount of effort into making sure that the album had a nice balance of ‘growers’ and more ‘instant’ tracks. It’s pretty interesting to see how reviews have been divided opinion between “it’s pretty average” and “it’s as a contender for record of the year”. I think a lot of this has to do with how much time (repeated listens) some reviewers are giving it. Hopefully there are enough ‘instant’ tracks there for you to get into the record and after a while you’ll stop flicking backwards and forwards to them and start listening through to those songs you didn’t really like at first. It’s these songs that will most likely end up being your long term favourites. In my opinion they’re the songs that help make records last and that’s what we really wanted from ‘Animals’.
So yeah I think there are always going to be people who don’t like what we do, but then it’s music. That’s how it is. Thanks to those of you who do defend us/your opinion on our record(s) online and in forums. It’s really great to see so many people passionate about what we do.
Just one last thing though…if you do struggle with ‘Animals’ at first, then please do try to persevere. It may take a bit of ‘tuning your ear in’, but I’m pretty sure there is something in there for most people.
So there are still a few dates left officially speaking, but we are now back home. The rest of the tour will be done by quickly driving up various motorways and A roads after work. Should be interesting.
Loads of stuff to tell you all. Expect a proper update shortly, but I just wanted to let you know that things should be picking up around here soon.
Hopefully these live videos I found should keep you busy until tomorrow.
