A perverse crossover of earnestness and crippling 21st Century anxiety.

Five-thirty.

Five-thirty in the morning.

I didn't even want to go to Abbey Road. Who's ever recorded anything there, eh? Eh? Come on. For goodness' sake.

Five-thirty in the god damn morning.

Still, Ed knocked on the door of the Phoria house looking chipper. Sez rolled out in the way that he does, all silky hair and a distinct focus on 'breakfast time'. Trewin, as usual, was full of beans – throwing van keys in the air and what-not as he talks to you.

I slept through the A27, needing a tea.

London traffic. A sea of cars sitting dead in the shitty morning sun. Everyone beeping and sitting perfectly motionless, except for the people adjusting their hair or their make-up. Seryn.

So, traffic – which is what happens when you flood an inlet – and then bundling across the pavement like a wagon in the wild west. In through the out gate. Honestly. And who says rock and roll is dead?

We slither out, excitable but...focussed.

Sign in at reception. Sign in for your session at Abbey Road.

'Yes , Hi. We're here for the session with x at Studio three.'

Mmmm.

And then we're in! Skipping down the halls, as you do, into the first open door. All dark and wood. All deep red rug and dead headspace. The peace of the treated walls hits you in the chest. A meet and greet, suddenly. The students we'd be working with. This was all set up by Berkeley, Boston. It's their session, but they pretend it's ours.

Handshakes. 'Hello.'

They're all clean. I slept in Jeb's bed (his presence in all but scent is regrettably ommitted from this story), and am who I am, so you can imagine how I felt. I'd just been in the back of a stinking van after a four-thirty start, so how do you think I was? Why did I suddenly have to face fifteen or so grinning Americans?

No, no. I kid, of course. 

Really.

 

So setting up guitars, then. Setting up guitars in Studio 3 of Abbey Road studios. No big deal, really. It's not like I've wanted this exact moment for the entirety of my colourful career so far, noodling around after school playing Guns n' Roses covers, all the while dreaming of doing exactly this, here, right now, strumming my freshly-strung telecaster in the same place any teenage hero I dare mention had strummed their own, so to speak.

So I played a little Pink Floyd. And the whole band, having set up, segued into a kind of chilled out funk jam for a couple of minutes. Ed was on a real Rhodes.

Man.

Time to work.

CRICKETS!

The fire alarms in the building, it turns out, we're being picked up by our guitars, and were forcing the sound of chirruping crickets down the microphones.

Numerous solutions were saught.

Trewin ended up sitting like a Yogi, trying to angle his guitar away from anything,to stop the buzz.

Still, we've just started recording, so sshhhhh. Quiet in the studio.

Cameras. Cameras everywhere. Everyone's documenting everything.

I found out later that there had been two ambient mikes placed in the studio, so as to record the goings on during the session. I'm a nice man (don't look at me like that) and don't often say things that I mean out of turn, but...now the paranoia strikes. What if I made a bad joke? What if I was having some fun just being a little bitch? I'm sure I didn't say anything. Oooh. I know I screamed. A lot. But then, that's just what I do.

40 odd takes of two halves of a song, in the end. Jesus, lads. Get your acts together. They don't call me Three-minute Douglas for nothing, you know.

Everyone's in and out – not knowing where to go or where they should be, but focussed. Always moving with purpose, despite not knowing how best to fulfil it.

Lay down the bass, Tim.

Synth was easy enough. Bass guitar was not. My hand had become a lump of lead. I played my balls off and, on holding the last note of the last take, screamed over a sustained note as I held back my left pinky, which was cramping its way towards the fretboard, ready to ruin my good time.

I showed it, though. I told it who was boss.

An original Hammond through a Leslie speaker. Our balls were literally exploding into dust at the sounds and the toys and the atmosphere and the people. Ed could have been skipping through a field of marigolds. Trewin had his eyes on everything.

It's a fucking magical place, I tell you.

FREE LUNCH AND DINNER.

Say. No. Mawah.

Back to Connie's. She's a violin player, playing in the quartet (made a quintet by the appearance of her fabulous bass player friend), for a quick beer and, good lord, sleep.

Do we sleep?

Do we?

God, we peeled ourselves off the floor that next morning.

I had to look at the financial district of London through caffeine-free and sleepless eyes. I had to watch the wankers in the back of their cars, skimming a little bit off everything, causing all the problems that we are told they are the answer to. It was one hell of an energising hour.

And I had the day off, on day two! I'd played my three god-damn instruments. It was the turn of the string-quairntet, and a bit of piano, and Trewin's vocals. One of the most magical moments was when Trewin, attempting the vocal track, very quietly asked for the lights to be turned off, and in the control room we were left in complete darkness but for the panoramic glow of the mixing desk. I just stared and listened, one of which things is something that I have never done before, ever.

And...I mean...it just happened. I spent the rest of the time at the back, getting drawn unnecessarily into an offensive joke swap. I swear, mum – I don't know any. We just...hung out and chatted with these fascinating and wonderfully friendly American students and, clearly, very kind, humble, and inspiring staff.

Their professionalism out-marked mine by a-thousand-to-one.

But I played Pink Floyd in Studio 3 at Abbey Road, which they didn't.

Then, Connie's. Or maybe not?

'I could go home.' (Not my words.)

Ah, a car park debate.

'If we ever come against an option where we choose whether to be men, or mice,' said Trewin, 'can we choose to be men?'

Agreed.

Back to Connie's. Again. More beer, this time.

More getting a knock from a frustrated neighbour because we were waking little children across the complex.

More dancing to tunes we didn't know., in our alcohol soaked pyjamas.

After all, we'd just been to Abbey Road, and we didn't have to wake up at three-thirty the next day.

I'm still getting over it.

We're on tour, next. Let's see how it goes.

Have fun, whatever you choose to play in Studio 3 of Abbey Road Studios.

I know I played fucking Pink Floyd.

Did you?

No.

Tim

Hugh, more or less.

            Christmas is just around the corner, isn’t it? Can you feel it? I can, weighing on me like an elephant. Every penny counts, so don’t be surprised if we can’t send you all an individually engraved solid gold statue of Seryn on the toilet. I can barely afford the one I bought for myself.

            The new EP is being groomed, like a prize dog. The last few hairs are being glued into place with Copydex. You know, the stuff you used in primary school then never ever used again, and don’t forsee ever using again, because it smells so bad and you go home and realise you’ve got a bit of it stuck to one of your fingers and peel it off and roll it up into a ball and play with it for a bit. Yeah, like that.

            I have no idea how it actually sounds. It’s become a part of the furniture, now. We hope everybody will like it.

            It might be being put through some interesting channels. We’ll know more when we know more, and you’ll know more when we decide to tell you we know more. For now, we know enough, and that's enough to spur us on and keep us believing through the cold, dry nights.

            This intense poverty is taking its toll on our sanity, I think. I say this every now and again – such is the way when you get five young(ish) people working together, chasing after an oasis. The power of belief can be enough, for the most part, but sometimes it fades and you’re left alone, in a desert, surrounded only by voices coming from far away, telling you’re not good enough, and should be doing more to ‘get us all out of this mess’. Still, you’ve got to plough on, haven’t you. ‘It’ll be fine’ is pretty much the band motto. I just romanticise it into a kind of 21^st century bohemia. Maybe this will all be looked back upon in one of those ‘I love 2013’ programmes, beamed straight into your eyeballs using Google Retina, and it’ll be ‘Oh yeah we had to hold our house together with bits of string and use guitars made out of felt tips. Great times. I’m so happy we went through that and developed character…’ all the while resting our feet on some slave or other, sipping 25 yr old Glenmorangie in our Canadian mansion while our enemies dig in the dirt outside for a briefcase containing £100,000 that we told them we hid somewhere, but didn’t.

            We’re still straddling that line between envelopment and isolation. It’s a tightrope, for sure, but we are definitely getting there. We have to remember that.

            We have you guys, anyway, and that’s enough to get us through. Of course, as always, your support and nice words make all the difference.

            So, the cold has snapped in, Christmas has taken all the jolly out of us, and now I’m just a whining old wind-up merchant. The best kind of company, and the best kind of person to let you know how we’re doing, now and then.

            I didn’t mean to bum you out. Don’t cry. We’re fine. The future looks rosy, but it’s like when the iPhone 5 comes out and someone says ‘You can’t have it right now, you have to wait for the iPhone 6 – it comes out next week.’, and you’re all ‘Well that’s OK, that’s great. But I’d very much like an iPhone 5. Like, now.’

            Temporal materialistic urges transferred onto idealism. That’s what’s going on. That’s what’s healthy.

            Have fun, and stay warm, whatever you’re up to, or not.

            Tim

PS. Say hello to Mr Ando.

An actual natural scenario.

I have a confession to make. I live a double-life. I am a double agent, trading secrets between the worlds of poverty and riches.

        My little dwarf of a bed-mate and I (and, I know, certain other members of the band) have regular dealings with her majesty’s Government concerning aspects of our personal welfare and our potential success. This is to the norm, and the presence of such a safety net and support network is not only welcomed and appreciated by us, but should be by all, for its myriad of societal benefits and the sense of solidarity for which it stands.

        Despite the undoubted best intentions (undoubted) of all involved, however, sometimes these systems will have cream-buns stuck in them somewhere – moistening the cogs and creaming up once creamless intricacies of previously perfect governmental processes. This particular cream, then, has been the subject of my morning so far, and has been for the memorable past. I am not, however, the party that dropped the bun.

        So, there is a stress. A direct, unnecessary and unexplained stress upon my very status as ‘person in a house’. Others have similar, politely unutterable problems.

       

        And so I take a step of desperation. A step that only the bravest yet most compromised agent would take. I maintain the cognitive dissonance of an imagined Reverend Charles Sheen, and draw from the completely imagined twin conflicting bank accounts of Jeremy Hunt, simultaneously. I make turncoat, if only in my head.

        Today, then, the other shoe in the bush on the other hand of Phoria is in central London, where we know several meetings of great importance to our future will take place. These are meetings that not only most bands, but most anyone-ers, would earnestly desire to be a part of not so much for any positive outcomes, but only to hear a yes or a no. Just to take part, as is the British way.

        Today, I and the rest of the band straddle both camps. Our bodies are weary, in all accounts empty, but our minds are flush with new ideas and avenues – new inlets of potential futures flowing all the time. Positive, moving forward – as much as we can, for now. We occupy both the bottom and the top; a coarse and inappropriate reflection of my favoured media.

        New material still coming. Promised soon.

        Little tastelessness.

        Tim

P.S.: Our next show.

Three little gigs.

What a couple of days/weeks this has been.

I’m typing this on a half melted, half absent set of keys on my hardy little laptop. My lady and I (absent) had a relatively minor fire in our flat two days ago. Two days ago while the band were stranded just off the A2 in London, our van Binky having broken down about 20 mins from the The Old Blue Last where we were scheduled to play for some very interesting people. Half of the keys on my keyboard are gone, so in an act of poverty driven defiance I’m typing directly onto the little rubber buttons that usually rest unseen behind the wall of helpful Roman characters. I don’t recommend this technique. I will now call it ‘Xtreme touch typing’.

As the fire spread, licking the Terminator and Metal Gear Solid posters and other ephemera that line the wall of ‘Tim’s corner’, my heroic little bundle of sense exhibited the attitude that got everyone through the last few days – sort the guitars first, and everything else can be sorted later. I smiled with relief (after asking after her wellbeing, of course. Of course. Ahem.) as she recounted her tale of leaping over the bed like a kangaroo to save my precious Rihanna and Betty (a relic-ed US Stratocaster and baby blue telecaster, respectively) from Satan’s faulty-hairdryer-fuelled clutches. They are safe and warm [sic], and thanks to my constant drilling of my girlfriend [sic] in the most dangerous and irresponsible ways of tackling large fires on your own, my precious collections of dangerously graphic ‘art’ films and hate letters to Michael Gove remain unscathed. Please show your love to her under the codename ‘Fire-officer Grimsby’, should you so wish.

Meanwhile, as she was pansying around with that shit, Phoria had three gigs in three days, four days after our return from eleven days on the road through Europe. That’s a total of three hundred million days.

Thanks to all who came to all. Your support is so incredible and we really appreciate it. It’s so nice to do what you do through all the stresses and worries and waiting three hours for the recovery services and flagging down amazing strangers in vans who take you to the venue in exchange for a modest fee and people you met in Croatia who come to the gig and take you in and buy you beers because you have nowhere else to stay, and at the end of it all see a new bunch of smiling strangers who so kindly express their enjoyment of what you’ve just smashed out through a suffocating sweat onstage. The promoters, also, showed a great deal of patience in dealing with us and our Laurel and Hardy ways.

So it has to be said that the day is done for me. All the band have earned a day of rest. Ed’s going on holiday, so the focus for now is on the new EP, which is taking shape for release this year. That’s right. Bloodworks was our nemesis for a while. A slow, cold war. This one’s going to be slick and easy. The songs have been brewing for a long time anyway – now all we have to do is pour the tea (tea being a metaphor for the songs) and wait for you to spill it all over yourselves in bed because your partner didn’t realise you had a hot drink in your hand and moved around really violently to improve their view of Ainsley Harriot’s Go-kart Meringue Vol. VII.

So yes, a new EP. Gigs. More stories from Croatia, once I’ve sorted a new keyboard.

I’m going to watch Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and eat chicken nuggets.

For now, have fun, and remember: sort the guitars first, and all else shall follow.

Tim

P.S. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Radio killed the internet star.

Hello? Hello?

Ah, there you are.

Good gig the other night at Sticky Mike's in Brighton. Thanks to those who came down! We've been up and down and in and out of, to, and from so many places recently that it was nice to play a lil' half hour set just around the corner. Home in time for Newsnight.

We're practicing this afternoon for our live appearance on BBC Sussex tomorrow evening. 8pm, I believe. You can listen online, if you're outside of the area.

Whenever I've done radio things before, the performances/interviews have always been pre-recorded - all the better to cut out any remarks I might make about...anything. Tomorrow night, though, it seems it's all going out live. I'm arming Seryn with a tranquiliser gun to be pointed at my head throughout the interview, lest any discussion of domestic politics or the illegal snail-fighting industry rear its steaming ugly head from a car parked in a disa... You see what I'm talking about? I can't let myself get sidetracked onto things like that. Stick to the music, Tim. Stick to the subject. Smile with closed lips and sound like you're nodding. Pretend like you're having a good time. Let the sedatives do their work...

So, yeah. Grateful for the opportunity.

We're looking forward to our gig at one of our favourite venues. Should be a mega blast, I tell thee.

And I won't have a microphone anywhere near my face. Something which could be a good or a bad thing, depending on your imagination.

Have a great Friday. Not like last week's, which was merely...

Tim