Session.

‘It’s a Brighton vegetarian cafe. It’s not like the one on London Road – it’s like...a Brighton Vegetarian Cafe. It’s hateful and awful but it’s also pretty amazing.’

I’m trying to arrange the day with the woman. There is a vegetarian cafe in Brighton that a friend once took me to that I’ve been meaning to let her in on. They have these wraps (I’ve forgotten what was in them) that taste like [I’ve forgotten exactly what they taste like]. (They probably taste like exactly what was in them.) I’ve also forgotten what the name of the cafe is.

One possible cause of my cognitive uselessness is last night’s post-shoot ‘celebration’.

They started work at about 9am, shifting gear around and setting everything up for the arrival of the very talented and excellent Alice Humphreys, who would be shooting us for the day. She worked with us a week or two ago on a new batch of press shots, and we thought it would be fun to get her in again to shoot a good time fun live session for the benefit of the internet.

I turned up well behind the stated schedule, following a mishap with three tins of WD40 and a caffeinated whooping crane.

So we set everything up, we got what lighting we could, sterilised my infected wounds, and tried to make sense of this feeling of performance in front of one person. That was very odd – to perform for one person while performing for everyone. We knew that we were no longer in a practice session, but at the same time we were not playing a concert.

There are various levels of performance, and ways of performing. You do not perform the same onstage at the London ICA in front of a thousand people as you would at Delila’s 85th in the dining room of Restful Pines Retirement Hotel. They simply don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do and I think knocking out the back wall to make space for the lighting rig caused more problems than it solved.

No, you have to adjust your performance to the occasion.

So what is this occasion? A hovering camera. There is no air moving, there is no crowd. There is focus on yourself and focus on the music – and it’s all being taken down; it’s all being noted. There is no transcendent moment, here. There is no ether into which you throw yourself. It’s all being taken down like courtroom portraits – here’s a man in his emotion, now scrutinise him. Here’s a man in as much vulnerability as he can take. Here is a man projecting every fibre of himself onto the world – now watch it forever. Forever and ever. NSA watch it. GCHQ keep it. Look at their faces look at their little eyes darting around in uncertainty. They’re play-acting. They’re fakes. Are we? Are we overdoing it? No. How do we know? We’re underperforming. Are we? We’re overperforming. No. None of it ain’t going nowhere. Nothing’s disappearing, is it? Nothing’s getting forgotten. Nothing’s lost...nothing’s gained…how does my hair look?...oh god…

So we had a few beers to lighten up, and that progressed into a party of us heading down to a Brighton pub to start the night early and end the night upside down, strapped to a tofu kebab and being dragged home on a skateboard by a kindly fox. Sunglasses Indoors was the theme of the night. Also the band game Five Card Rocket, to which – once they have been officially codified by the Phoria Occupations Organisation - I will one day explain the rules.

All in all, while the difficulties of red-light syndrome do exist, the day seems, from my current slanty angle, to have been a success. We did lose ourselves in some of the performances and we did try and create a nice little package for people to enjoy, as we always try to do. You'll see it once it's all been cut together nicely. It ain’t anything like suffering, this malarkey – but there is something in there that asks to be shared, so we try and share it.

So today, being Saturday (as it is), and that being after such Friday (yesterday), I need some vegetables. I need vegetables and I need love.

Don’t we all?

Do have fun, in whatever mischief you may partake.

Tim

P.S. Remember to follow our Instagram @phoriamusic, and our Twitter too @phoriamusic. Chat to us. We like it. Go to www.phoriamusic.com for details on our upcoming tour.

The Master.

We do what The Master tells us we must. When The Master is speaking, all doors are closed and conversation dies. The Master promises greatness. We must obey the aural whim of The Master.

We're making a few tweaks to the latest master of Bloodworks. Unfortunately this fact, along with one or two other spanners in the toilet, means we're pushing the official release date back by about two weeks. Take that look of shock and utter disbelief off your face - those of you who have been with us from the start should know better by now. Those of you who are new: Welcome. This is how it is. Ask the older kids for advice.

Still, the tracks should shortly be returning to our Soundcloud (not too sure when, but very soon), all fresh and sexy sounding. It's difficult to link to Soundcloud on a phone, so google it (exactly why is it not in your bookmarks?) then click and share our Kickstarter, which, and do not ask why, is very easy for me to link to. Why, it's so easy, you could even link it to your friends and family! Easy, convenient, affordable, fun for adults and children alike! Get yours now!

What have we been up to? We spent last Saturday in a warehouse with a very brave model, a thermometer reading that merited a concerned phone call from Pingu (though I think he was just trying to get in on the act - he hasn't had any TV work for years. I hear he was trying to avoid being typecast.), and a very powerful pressure washer. Red music video. That was fun. Ed and I were in charge of the ambient music. My favoured track? Travis's Why does it always rain on me?

From that day on, then, it's been a mixture of blind panic and editing. Trewin and Jeb are taking our other model, Gab, down to some seaside location today to get a couple more shots and we're practicing tonight in prep for our Wednesday gig at The Old Queen's Head in Lundun on Wednesday at The Old Queen's Head in Lundun (Phoria gig, Lundun, T.O.Q.H) at The Old Queen's Head. We've also been liaising with some great visual artists with whom we'll be collaborating at next month's SoundScreen festival at Brighton Dome studio. Should be a larf. It all looks very promising indeed.

That's Munday, then. Newsy. No jokes. Goodbye.

Tim 

P.S. Please do what The Master says, and spread it around again. We need one last big push in this last week to take us over the edge! The edge of glory! Sung by Lady Babar, the French elephant popstar king.

I'm not even going to leave. I'm going to wait here until you share that link. Tum tee tumm.

*whistles*

*hums Antiques Roadshow theme*

I'll be here.

There's literally no good title for this post.

It's difficult to put everything together in some easily digestible round up of what we've been doing for the last week or two.

The hard drive arrived back at mine, safe and sound. The incantations worked, it seems.

Jeb's got an avalanche of stuff to be dealing with right now. Two different recorded live performances are being edited - one at Brighton Electric and the other at Hoxton Bar & Kitchen. I don't usually get to see much stuff as it goes through the mill, as I tend to catch up with people during a practice or over a drink but rarely sit around in the Phoria tech-zone while new footage is being tested or audio tweaked and twisted. We spent a long time a couple of evenings ago re-aligning audio to video by one single frame to get the best sync.
'Does that look right?'
'No, look at his leg.'
'Yeah but maybe his leg's out of time.'
'Alright put it back one.'
'...no, that doesn't look right.'
'His leg does.'

Also Red, as if you're not yet sick of seeing it in italics, has been working a wicked influence on the world. The video's on the way (more work, JEBBY!) and there are one or two little niggles with the release that's changed the shape of fingernails throughout the band. Everything's going to be fine, we're sure. I can see the song living in some little songy dimension, reclining in its big wheely leather chair and laughing as it throws its head back, fingers splayed vertically with touching tips. Everything's going to be fine, we're sure. Genuinely. I have to make that clear - we're just so excited about releasing it that every day it's not officially released is painful.

Otherwise we've been booking gigs (yaaay!), practicing, emailing, sorting. There's been a lot of office work this week.

OH and a photoshoot! How did I forget the photoshoot?! New pictures of me, you lucky people. There's lots of work with silhouette and light and stuff, which means you can't really see my face. That's alright, though - I'm launching my own brand of correction fluid pen, so you can just scrawl my collector's item of a frontispiece onto any shadowy image you like. Improve your art's aesthetic qualities AND improve the value and desirability of your home, with...whatever. My face in Tim-ex, I guess. I don't know.

All this stuff is slated for this month. We'll let you know.

So, Sunday. Strong coffee and a concession to mindless television, I think. That ought to do us good.

Have fun, whatever you're up to.

Tim