Pick it up.

We've been away.

The album got done, so we packed up and shipped out. Our faces had become to each other like the lost keys you keep scanning over, but never actually see and recognise. We saw more of each other's noses in that time than we did of walls. I don't even consider the guys as people any more - they're now just cardboard cut outs with loudspeakers attached, repeating the same stuff over and over again about reversing the car to get off their leg.

So we span in our various directions, for a while. Sure, we had a party or two, but all work stuff has been getting done over Skype and messenger services and things. It's been that kind of time. All briefs and contracts and mock-ups and things like that. You know, the gleeful stuff.

We've all been away on our respective desert islands, biking around the countryside, sitting in front of screens editing videos or other music or personal projects; scrubbing tiles in an underground kitchen somewhere - slinking our psyches into the shredder of life to try and take some of the thatness away. 

Consider our last few weeks a weekend with the kids at a leisure park, where only once or twice has it been necessary to duck behind a tree and take a phone call from Louise about the Marchester account. Tell them it was sorted on the twenty-third and I'll get Bill to call the contractors about upgrading the roofing.

We're very lucky to have a number of very good people doing things like releasing the singles and sorting tickets at gigs and things and all that monkey hair that turns to mush in such precious brains as the band members'. Thank you here, monkey hair manipulators.

So PRAISE THE CEILING we're meeting up in person today for the first time in ages to sort out some last bits of peripheral artwork, and really get some more of it done, yeah? Everyone's going to be happy about that.

Trewin will sashay into the room two hours late, big sunglasses on his face, one arm out to the side, asking what the fuck we want him for – he's got a car waiting, he's got other things to be doing, and who are we?

Seryn will be sat in the middle of the floor, cross-legged. In his right hand will be a toy train and it will be flying through the air. It will be making a “brum, brum” sound.

Jeb will have his PC set up in the lounge, and will be rocking backwards and forwards. His eyes will be red from coffee and strain, and he will be muttering to himself. Something about aliasing. He will look pale and ill.

Ed will be hoovering, checking behind the back of the sofa Jeb is sat on, and asking Seryn to make sure all the play-doh stays on the table, please, because he's not going to scrub that out of the carpet if someone steps on it.

I will probably be sat in the corner. Alone. Speaking to the floor. After a while the others will look at each other and ask “When's Tim getting here?”

And after ten hours we will looks at a picture that we no longer recognise and collectively shrug and say “Alright then.”

-

So Volition's out on 3rd June, and we've had a few singles out and all that. Thanks for your support on this, all. We're really glad these things get such good responses and we're really glad people like them.

We've got to get back into the swing of it all after this little break. Spring is here. It's time for drinks outdoors, yes? It's time for “fun” in the “sun”, isn't it? Isn't it? That's what we're supposed to be doing, isn't it? Those are the rules, aren't they? That's what it's all for in the end, isn't it? Five minutes in the British sunshine, eh? 

Eh?

Isn't it?

It's Thursday already. Wednesday seems like it was only yesterday.

Pretty slick stuff, I insist you'll agree.

Now get out there and kick your life in the chutney without fear of losing your shoe.

Me

'All these...moments...will be lost in time, like the smell of your shoes when you use our new product!' [Quote from 'Glade Runner'.]

            Whatever I say here, it’s the bread in my head talking.

            Right, so, what’s been going on?

            Saturday night we only went and bloody well recorded with a bloody string quartet didn’t we? Eh? Only went and strummed and pickled along with some proper bloody musicians, eh? Ed got to accompany one of the violinists ‘practicing’ some Vivaldi during one of the breaks, as you do, which pleased him so much I thought he had a banana lodged in his gob.

            We did it all in the recording studios at The University of Surrey, with the very able and amicable Oscar (Oskar? Oska? Glen?) Somethingorother who also very kindly put us up at his house after our 3am finish. The evening ended with us blearily watching the pale blue glow of sunrise appear behind net curtains while drinking some remarkably dodgy sherry. Thom-of-the-Novi was also in residence, filming all and making every mistake watchable a thousand times over. We’ve handed the footage over to Edward Snowden for safe keeping, so it’ll be viewable soon.

            Sunday was something of a write-off, then. We went to the effortlessly sterile PC World in short-notice-search of a big hard drive to take the previous night’s recording from Oscar (Oskar? Oska? Glen?) Somethingorther, and also to back up all of the work currently teetering on the precipice Trewin’s computer. Imagine. It’s all on there. It’s all on there, dangling by a thread of computer failure. One wrong website, Trewin. One wrong website…

            And I, like so many defence contractors, have already seen his search history.

            In the waning words of the world’s worst; Fred Durst: Back up, back it up.

            We also treated ourselves to a Sunday feast in Frankie & Benny’s (despite my fervent protestations) which was like eating some dinner inside an arse. Our waiter was a dude, but the food tasted like someone had read a cookbook backwards. My stomach made noises I’d never heard before, that evening. There’ll be samples of it on the new EP.

The sounds, that is.

Then, just as soon as I’d fallen asleep in the van and then the next thing I know woken up the next day in my own bed, it was time to play The Haunt with the ever wonderful Mt. Wolf.

Here’s an example of their music which both the band and their existing fans will no doubt find an achingly predictable choice, but I’ve already put the work ‘achingly’ in front of ‘predictable’ in order to emphasise it, so I’m pretty much running the risk of post-modernism as the sentence descends into a wry smile of nonsense.

(I tried everything to embed the video on here, but it seems Google are unable to integrate their services properly unless you're a Government, so here is a long hyperlink and explanatory sentence.)
 

This song’s been in my head for a very long time. It bangs the shit out of your bones if you go and watch it live. Go and watch it live, then.

The Haunt gig was good. Thanks for coming down, those who did. Those who didn’t, find Doc Brown, go back, go watch. I’ll thank you as my memory alters.

            Last night was our gig with the same band in Heaven. That’s always fun to say. Another good gig – perhaps our biggest yet! Despite my really rather painful neck problem making me feel like an emotionless statue onstage, I think we all had a really good time.

            Good work, gang. Keep following – all sorts of news and other delights are flowing freely from our rusty pipelines.

            Today, then, is a day of restful delights. I’m currently sipping my second coffee, I’m about to stand in my freezing back garden with an invigorating little cherry ended friend, and then I think I’ll spend the day inside under a blanket trying to complete Half-Life on the PS2.

            Because that’s how bread rolls.

            Have fun, whichever baked good you choose to become.

            Tim

           

Van Halen's tiny sleigh.

Valentine's day, eh? That should be enough to bump us up a few google rankings. Now let's leave it there.
Tuesday night (Bloodworks launch party at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen) was a bloomin' banger! Thanks of course to Akira for having us, and thanks to Apollo, the God of music and medicine, among other things, for whatever and all the music and medicine. Kickstarter. Thanks to the other bands, too. Ed Prosek. Halflight. Hollow giants. Oh, and thanks to you intensely attractive fan people for coming down to check it all out and making loads of noise and heat radiation.
The gig was filmed, so hopefully some footage should emerge, in time. 
Let's all have fun and a great day. I'm going to push my camel of a brain through the needle eye of the after-party aftermath, and try to avoid anything related to FAILentine's day ('That is a great pun, Tim.' 'Yeah thanks I already know.') by locking myself inside a giant heart shaped greeting card (with real blood!), eating opportunistically priced chocolates bought in a forgetful haste from my local newsagent, and gifting that girl who keeps hanging around my face a bunch of near-dead wasp-magnets pinched from a petrol station forecourt.

Hope my great plan works and succeeds!

Tim

P.S. If YOU would like gifts and public displays of affection etc. from us/me then you don't have to do much. Just look at and share THIS. Please! Thank you! Sharing remains the key indicator of caring, as my Children's Book of Marxist Theory: Abridged Edition attests.