...and what could be more entertaining than that!?

Will the collective memory of the internet lead to cultural stasis?

That's the interesting and brand new, exciting question I've been re-asking myself.

I was going to write, like many others have, about Latitude festival (where we played and stayed last week), but - unlike other people who have written about it - I don't even know if there's anything to write about.

It is thought that fiction allows you to empathise better with people and situations (see: Alien). It could be seen almost as a kind of exposure therapy to help us contextualise future experience. This is usually something said of written fiction, but I prefer the example of when the band went to Slovenia and while the vast, cool mountains of that country filled all of us with a deep sense of joy and peace, I couldn't escape the voice in the back of my head that said “Yeah, but I've seen it all before in Skyrim.” (For the uncultured swine: Skyrim is a video game.) The only difference is that in Skyrim, people talk to me.

So the reviews that I've read of the festival mostly consist of a dispassionate list of acts, and submissions for an apparent competition to see who can least creatively describe tents and trees and people in a field. And I wonder if that's because where in decades past there would be a new review every year, nowadays every review or story from every year remains available online, so there's nothing really left to say, or, more importantly, for the reader to know. If 2016 was basically as good as 2014, you have to write something the same, but different, and only different for the sake of having a review of the 2016 version of the event.

But is it possible that we have been so exposed to this kind of permanently available media (Photo no: 3429485325485439464348543574584345. Caption read: “Look! Young people at Glastonbury covered in mud!”) that the glut of available descriptions of the event and subsequent 'exposure therapy' has desensitised us to some degree to the actual experience?

("Ha! Look! Someone diving into the mud pool!" "There are twenty videos on the Guardian 2013 archived live-feed of the best festival-mud-dives 2010-2012. They're much better if not exactly the same." "OK. I'm off to watch Paul McCartney again." etc.)

There are categories and formats that dictate whether or not the content (reviews, media, etc.) - and the thoughts and perceptions contained within - can be recognised as such. It appears to me that what matters in a (hypothetically) desenstitised world is not what the highlights of the festival were, but only that there were highlights. The answer to “What were the highlights?” no longer necessitates the name of an act or event, but more “What were the highlights, you ask!? The highlights were good!” because the elements of a review (and to some extent our own personal expectations of our experience) have been so categorised that it matters only that the criteria for a review or experience were fulfilled, rather than a more abstract sense of what elements made this experience different/of and/or better/worse/tinsel than/from the rest/others./

So are we in danger of entering a period of cultural stasis brought about by the permanence of electronic memory inadequately servicing a desensitised audience who respond to contextual format (commonly labelled content) over actual experiential and/or narratively justified content?

On another topic, we've been practising hard through the heat and the haze, ready for Blue Dot festival this weekend. It's a festival not only about music, but about space and science and stuff, which we like, so that should be interesting even though I could just look up and the sky and be all like “I've seen it all before.”

We're also booking dates and that, for touring and stuff. Even though we've done that already.

We're also booking dates and that, for touring and stuff. Even though we've done that already.

You've already read that bit.

(We're also rescheduling the launch gig. Sorry about all that. Trewin is much better than he was. It was a bad few days. We will make it up to you.)

So it's Friday. The goose is getting fatter and I've got to find some stories to tell.

Grin at someone this weekend. It doesn't matter who.

And grin. Don't smile. Grin. If you smile, I'll know. It's not the same. Give them a knowing grin.

I'm telling you, it's not the same.

And I will know.


Tim


PS. I promise you something fun from Blue Dot. I promise. Perhaps a treatise on common wheel-arch design and the modern people carrier. Or a drawing of me rubbing a tank.

an album

Taken from The pre-musician's guide to advanced post-musical production, b3rd edition, (2013).

---

How to make an album, by Timothy Douglas (bass).

IF you are one of those people who takes the miragic carousel of life as real (IF), then congratulations: you are living in The Modern World. In this The Modern World, among the more popular things to do is to make music for listening. Music for listening can iron out your worries/shirts, liven up a boring funeral, or make you cry at just everything that's wrong.

No wonder it so as this popular!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!and!!!!!!

Music, much like a plumber's tool, comes in "information boxes". These "fo-bos" are delivered in different shapes. Smaller fo-bos, called “EPs” often come as packs of four (4) or five (4) songs or “tracks”. Fo-bos of ten (and/or 11) tracks or "songs" are “albums”. “It is albums about which we for an will be looking at today.” She said.

To make an album in The Modern World, there are ten things you need to do. We will start with number four (5):

4 (5). Miss your deadlines.

A deadline is called a dead line for a reason; it is the place in space where dead lines reside.

Experiment:

• Draw a line on a sheet of paper.

• Did you create this line? Or have you simply caused a small part of a line that already existed to manifest? This line clearly existed before you (unless you invented the possibility of geometry! (Which you didn't!)-!!and), and so is infinite and therefore better than you. You're not even as good as a line.

• Rest.

If you think about this as correctly as I have, you will understand that the place where all lines exist preeminently is a place to which you do not want to go. Neither is it a place you will want to think about. Steer well clear, then. Ignore the “deadlines” that punctuate your ever accelerating progress.

7. Run out of your money.

“I have all the money in the world!” said the man who never finished his homework. Why would you finish your homework when you have all the money in the world? You wouldn't. I never finished my homework and I didn't have any money. I didn't even start my homework! I didn't even have a home! I didn't even go to school! I was never even born!

Don't start your homework; do run out of money. That's the only proven formula for any success ever and is as old as time (which is quite old!).

(and young!)

3. To make an album you must run out of your money by spending your it.

If you're going to need to run out of money (see above it's quite clear), you're going to have to find a way to do it. Spending it is the most popular way to run out of your money. Aside from private healthcare and Council Tax, there are many things a person can spend their money on. Studios, instruments, make-up, guns, and a list of english colloquialisms with the names of seasons in them are the first things that spring to mind.

Think of as many things to spend money on as you can, then get some vomit-inducingly attractive person standing at a till to list them on a receipt for you until you die.

Experiment: 

• Do exactly what I just said.

6. Maintain poor lines of communication.

The last thing you need when you're trying to do anything at all even heart surgery is people communicating with you all of your time. Ugh, I hate all forms of communication. I don't even like it when my legs communicate with my brain. Legs can get a lot more done (swinging!) if simply left to its own devices, so cease communication with all potential interactors at all your costs (which is all your things!).

2. Have distractions to you.

Invent a game with your shoes! Tie yourself up and then wonder how you did it. Make a different album! Nothing is uninteresting if you've got something else that needs doing, so distract yourself as much

9. Lose will to live.

It's 3am and you need the toilet. You go to the toilet and hoist the arc and look at yourself in the mirror. There you are; paragon of animals. There you are in your 'jamas, staring at a sheet of reflected technicolour. Your skin looks pale and your eyes look deep. You feel dizzy with thought. The world is quiet, and a sudden sense of individuality returns after years of service to others.

What am I doing?

Where have the years gone?

Stare at the mirror for twenty days or until breakfast.

“Here comes another great album.”

5. Destroy others.

If you want to commit to making an album, you will also have to commit to not committing to anything else. This includes people. The loved ones with whom you had previously surrounded yourself must take on the role of mechanical hardware, while the mechanical hardware that you work with daily should take the role of emotional confidant, object of care, and reticent repeated sexual partner.

1. Destroy yourself.

"You are nothing. You are a waste of space. You think you're so clever, but really you're a dot on a speck on an arse. Fuck off. Go on. Fuck off."

You may find yourself thinking slightly less of yourself as doubts start to creep in following months of isolation and “private creation” (and when you think about everything you've done).

This is your favourite part.

The whole point of being someone who wants to make an album is to come out the other side of the process as someone with no idea who the person who started making it was. When you start to find the music recorded by that happy ghost unpleasant and baffling, it will finally hit home that all sentient life is not only an accident, but a mistake. This realisation will enhance creativity. Destroy yourself and see for how long you can crawl through the wreckage of your spirit, screaming into the great echoing void for anything that resembles mercy. (Hint: It's a long time!)

8. Desire nothing.

You have nothing, and by now you have convinced yourself that you will always be nothing. There is nothing. Your album, then, is nothing. But you (and your friends!) want your album. By this logic then; if you desire your album, you desire nothing. Congratulations on finding the most Western route to nirvanic cosmic annihilation. Now set the levels on your input gain.

And finally of for your and with…

10. Do not divulge your secrets.

There is a reason your rooms have your doors. Your rooms have your doors so you don't have to install laser systems to burn out the eyes of sneaky trespassing bastards. Behind all albums/doors are stories and events that tell as much as the music/dungeon itself. Do not share these stories (at least as they are occuring).

Doing this is unseemly and could decrease your future income.




Follow your excellent how to guide (this one) and you will have made your album.


---



We made an album.

We recorded it and mixed it and selected the artwork.

Now that our part is over, it needs to go off to other people to have things done to it so it can make words and videos that people will find interesting. If people don't find the words and videos interesting, they might not know the music exists, and so never hear it.

We've had to come to the conclusion that this happening would be sad.

It's been nearly two years, so I think we're going to take tonight off.

It's Wednesday. There's no use in denying that.

Tim

"That's not what I said."

While throwing eggs at a cow (I was trying to make breakfast) the other day, a woman in drab, beaten clothes approached me, handing me a pamphlet.

“Time slows down as gravity increases!” She barked.

I didn't trust her skin and clothes because they blended in to one another.

Here gives you what the pamphlet said:

–

The dome has a ceiling as wide and capacious as the sky.

Beneath your feet is sand, and as you look around you see many soft shaped figurines posed as walkers. Each is attempting to make its way to the centre of the dome – the direction in which you, too, are heading.

In the centre of the dome, at ground level, augmenting the impression of vastness given by the gentle golden arches that soar above you, is a large black orb that at first glance appears lost in some orgy of vibration.

The black orb spins so fast that there can be no point of contact between perceiver and object, yet any person would insist, to any interrogator, that it is there.

You make your way towards the orb, breathing in air that thins and becomes easier the closer you get.

You start to feel light, and move with great freedom.

Closer to the centre of the dome, you notice that the sculptures change their posture. At first they were proud. Some were holding hands. Now they are separate, and some of them have fallen to their knees.

You keep walking, your arms swinging.

Your brain starts to fizz as breathing becomes so easy and smooth; you feel the thrill of gliding on ice. Your feet almost hover above the desert floor, they feel so light. Your chin rises. Your chest puffs out. Your body fixes on the orb, and you continue past the sculptures. Some of them show signs of struggling under weight.

You begin your approach, and the vibrations of the orb start to affect you. You now tilt your head and wince, but keep going as something in you says you cannot stop.

Soon your easy breaths become strange as the air begins to pulse. Now you walk and you see your skin move out ahead of your bones. The air distorts as if manipulated by heat. The sculptures around you are all on hands and knees. Some have curled up into balls and some stretch out in desperate worship of the orb that now stands over you, filling up the sky.

You continue as best you can but you feel a clash in your imagination. Every movement double takes at the rate of vibration you feel from the orb. You feel that you have already taken each step when in fact you have not moved. You see the orb and you reach out to it, but your body does not. Your hand is by your side. It rests as now, and moments ago when this feeling first arose. Your hand is out in front of you as if the task were already performed.

The sequence rolls.

And you are not there, or behind, but right here, existing as a point of past and future thought. You drop forever to the ground, inhale with limitless lungs, and now forever stretch one rough hand out towards the orb.

–

“What in stupid hell is this?” I said.

The lady, taken aback, shrugged beneath her rotting cotton.

“Religious... it's like religious things. It's about...look...”

She wagged a finger at the pamphlet.

“Here – this bit here. In the words.”

“I haven't got time for this! I said, “My band have got an album to finish!”

Ha ha ha! What a laugh, eh readers?!

Tim

8:14, if you use the twelve hour format.

Goodbye then, 2013.

You were the year of Bloodworks, of Red, of Croatia, of Heaven, and that misunderstanding behind the bike shed.

You were a year of joy, of happiness, of getting no sleep thanks to the Auto-bahn, of swimming in Lake Bled, of that My Bloody Valentine gig.

You were a year of pain, of frustration, of nearly-theres, of not-quite-rights, of bumbling bundles and of misplaced bass notes that ruined the whole song but that’s OK nobody noticed oh no hang on they’re all looking at me just look at the keyboard and pretend you didn’t do anything wrong oh shit what note are we on oh god I think it’s an F# but if I’m wrong it’ll sound so much worse than it already is 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 OK it’s the chorus coming up just relax get back and retrack the phatness yes there we are.

Oh shit no that’s not it where the hell are we oh yeah we don’t play the studio version when we do it live that’s ok just dance like you’re really into it don’t go red don’t go red have a drink ok move your arms and stuff move your neck in a really jerky way that’s cool.

Oh good the gig’s over who was in the crowd? Oh shit oh well they probably didn’t notice because I covered so well oh no hang on I’m still in my house I didn’t leave the house well OK let’s play video games then.

Oh no I just woke up in the hospital apparently the crowd came up onto the stage and knocked me out for wrecking the gig that’s OK we didn’t get an offer from the record people but the WWE want me so at least I’ll be richer than these other fuckers who can’t even make it sound good when their bassist is playing all the wrong notes and knob out all over that shop.

Oh no they’ll probably read this now what have I said I must learn some self control .

We can’t wait for this year. Everyone’s feeling it. I don’t know if this is just a feeling that everyone gets at this time of year, and I’m just applying it to our situation, but still...I can feel it.

Hopefully you can, too.

I saw in the new year with some good friends, in the rain, all of whom were wilfully helping a complete stranger who had passed out in the street and was throwing up copiously on himself. Honestly, I preferred it to spending that moment in the company of sweaty-armed strangers, my beautiful face pressed against their pits, and getting the funny eye from that guy hanging around the bar, playing with his belt buckle.

But then, I have an odd sense of humour/the good life.

I’m tired.

More EP news, soon enough.

Have a good one. Get back  to it, and all that.

Tim

...he said with a cheery smile.

Purposelessness drives us down into the ground.

Such is the fate of a bass player.

Trewin’s hard at work, probably - tweaking the new stuff, adding tiny little melody lines behind the core song to add interest and stuff that only our subconscious really hears to keep us interested in whatever music we’re listening to. Listen carefully to something in your collection that at first glance seems highly repetitive, and you’ll see that the reason your brain does not switch off (or…maybe it does) is because of some misplaced drum skit, or some off-kilter note in the rhythm section, somewhere (and it may occur just once), that keeps you interested without you knowing. It’s like television. Those flashing white transitions in adverts that force every ancient instinct to PAY ATTENTION. That’s what musicians make. A piece of music, in the 21^st century, is more than anything else an advert for itself. Please refer to: IMHO

            Not to denigrate it. There’s still an Aristotelian ratio to be calculated between observing a perfect wall of paint as its vapours whisp into a mathematically ornate universe, and being assaulted by a Michael Bay film. 

            Jeb’s working, probably, on videos or new visual things or whatnot. France Traumas, I think it’s called. A satire on European existentialism, which is something to which I cannot relate and, oh woe, fear I shall never be able to…

            Nothing new here. Hard at work on the usual stuff. Phoria stuff.

            Ed’s scoring some string parts for recording. That’s what a classical education and a predilection for unheard of tidiness will get you. Not a note out of place, I’m sure.

            Seryn’s started teaching Japanese, I think. Or English to Japanese people. Or something like that.

            Me? I play bass. I live in my little satellite habitat. What have I been up to? My own stuff. Throwing out guitar lines this way and that, sitting in a backbreaking posture on a wooden chair (my comfy, executive chair was destroyed in, you know, a fire) typing away for days on end, trying to finish weird little projects that I still don’t believe I ever will.

            I think that we all feel a slight sense of limbo. Or perhaps it’s just me. The future, from here, looks bright, but it shines like a 1pm appointment. It’s not like you can really start anything this morning, as you’ve got to leave the house at midday, so you tidy up the kitchen a bit, flick frustratingly around the TV or check facebook for twenty minutes longer than you normally would just to get shot of that time that lays before you. Before you have something to do. You’d rather either just get the appointment out of the way, or have it late in the day, like 5pm, so the day is yours, rather than belonging to your own apprehension.

            We’ve got so much stuff going on, I guess I’m just being complacent. I WANT EVERYTHING TO HAPPEN NOOOOWW! Not later! Not at 1pm! NOW! *stamp stamp feet feet*

            As a product of a capitalist society, I demand purpose. I demand that something demands my attention, with urgency.

                Or I could just practice Distorted Western Buddhism. 

                Thank goodness for laissez-faire.

            Tim

P.S. Welcome, to our three-thousandth facebook fan. Come see us play with Efterklang on 28^th October at Hove Old Market. It’s literally just down the road from me, which means it’s great.

           

What we are made for.

            You came to see us at Cargo, some of you.

            Thank you for that.

            Check out the guys at Petulant Penguin and go to one of their other nights, too. They are lovely and deserve all the success they’ll no doubt achieve in the increasingly science-fiction-comparable City of London.

            The other bands, too: Leaving Atlantis and My New Favourite Tribe

            The gig was good. We’d been there since one o’clock in the afternoon, and spent a good five hours soundchecking; getting things ready for another aurally spacious gig with a slimmed down version of the Phorchestra. Many will balk at that name, but I embrace it if only in an obvious attempt at post-irony.

            There was an issue during said soundcheck as we discovered that the light on one side of the stage was blocked by a large tubular ventilation shaft running along the ceiling. This light was necessary for the willing members of the Phorchestra to read their parts. (They read their music off sheets of paper - not like real musicians like myself who insist on vaguely memorising a series of notes, then panicking constantly or using Pterodactyl based memory tricks to crack open the floodgates of your soul.)

            Trewin stepped up as soon as the problem was outlined, and in a ‘flash’ of genius and telecommunicative sacrifice he fired up the torch on his ancient phone and swiftly duct taped it to the ventilation shaft that was causing all of the problems.

            Problem: solved.

            …until we started playing, and it became violently apparent to those who weren’t spellbound by the sound at front of house that Trewin had neglected to put his phone on silent. I can still see one violinist, and you know who you are, sniggering as Trewin’s personally selected one-consciousness-trance ringtone sang at us from across the stage. I didn’t manage to catch your eye, here unnamed violinist, but I shared your upturned corner-of-mouth and juddering shoulders.

            In the van on the way home Ed also mentioned a ‘strange rumbling sound that was kind of in a rhythm, but was totally out of time with the rest of the music.’ It was not until my head had been neatly placed onto a pillow that the neurons fired to tell me it must have been Trewin’s phone vibrating against a hollow metal tube that spanned the entire length of the room. I blame the technical staff, as is the musician’s tradition. I hope none of you noticed…

            Another one:

            As we took to the stage, Trewin said a polite hello and indicated that ‘we will be starting with kind of a quiet one, so…it might be worth simmering down a bit.’ Quiet followed. Then the frequency splitting hiss of the dry ice machine whirring into action for a good seven seconds. I see this as an obvious display of technological sentience and protest that will one day result in our music being played in a future-war scenario as thermal-goggled geo-clones wage war through billows of dry ice to defeat the evil AI (housed in the body of a robot shark) insistent upon causing farcical scenarios. This is how it starts. Do not blind yourself to the reality of the situation.

            So far, so Spinal Tap.

            Then we tripped and fell down the rabbit hole.

            Gig finished. ‘Hurrah!’ we all said, turning around to see our equipment immediately being man-handled offstage and almost thrown through the back door into a pile of wide-eyed drinkers. ‘Let’s get this shit out of here’ one white-shirted, and clearly very important and direct and practical man hissed to his co-workers. It was nice. Can we go through this door? I’m carrying an amp that weighs more than me! No. OK. But this is a door, right? Yes, I'm going to get out just as soon as I find a door I can get through. Can I get my stuff from backstage? No. Oh…how do I? Erm…

            Luckily I tend towards video games that rely on stealth-mechanics - all calculation and timing - and I also have this fantasy where I’m a total badass whocouldbreakintothisbigmilitaryinstallationifireallywantedtobutijustdon’twanttotodayso. So I managed to blend in seamlessly with the ‘club night’ that had immediately popped up in our wake as if the people were once invisible and several bags of flour had just been released from the ceiling; I got the security code (to which I was rightly entitled) and managed to get backstage to retrieve my precious, precious plastic bag with my shoes in. Then I walked away, lighting a cigarette while the whole barrage of ‘retro’ beats and flesh exploded behind me in a huge ball of flames that resembled my smiling face.

            The post-gig strictness was foreshadowed by our navigating an entranceway that Jeb rightly pointed out was scarily dystopian in nature, so in fairness we should have seen it all coming. It’s right, of course, that stringent security measures are in place at certain venues. If I was giving them slips of paper in direct exchange for a can of beer and receiving no change I would also want the peace of mind that comes from being in a place that follows the protocol of a lockdown in San Quentin. That’s a good thing. Everyone feels safe. A bit like the internet in a couple of months. Safer for everyone.

            At the entranceway you are asked for photo identification, whomever you may be and however old you may look. That’s OK - knowing who’s in the building and all that. But, hilariously, your ID is put into a scanner above which sits a huge screen that proceeds to display your photograph, name, and age. It couldn’t have been any more Demolition Man if it had a big flash of green text saying ACCESS GRANTED CITIZEN #41729. REAP THE REWARDS OF CONSUMPTION. Jeb’s ID picture is hilarious, and the door staff didn’t even crack a hello before they frisked us.

            Of course, had the security not been so efficient, we would no doubt feel less comfortable having the staff leave our gear outside among the throng of jeans-and-suit-jacket drinkers. At least we would know who it was who had stolen it. Not that prosecutions based on that technology alone are successful.

            All good. We’ll hit Cargo again. Go there.

            A special shout to Louie, who came and sorted out some special visuals. Great work, champ. Live projection mapping and all that.

            After all of that it was a party or home. I was knackered, so we split into two groups. Some went partying (I heard one of us was spotted in the early hours of Saturday striking up jaunty conversations with strangers on the tube…) and some went back to Brighton to recline and listen to music after a long day/week/month. Ed, in his sobriety, took on the mantle of ‘absolute hero’ with his flu-inspired late night driving.

            We listened to some great music, but I don’t remember what it was. Jeb – can you put a couple of the bands in the comments section on facebook or something? I’m sure the people want to know what we listen to when we hang out. …right?

            Love to you all, on this fantastic autumnal Sunday.

            THIS ENTRY WAS NOT WRITTEN BY ANYONE AFFILIATED WITH PHORIA. PHORIA AND ASSOCIATED PERSONS DO NOT NECESSARILY ENDORSE ANY OR ALL OPINIONS STATED HEREIN. FACTS ARE THEY.

            Tom

           

           

           

(Stud)Hi-ho, (stud)hi-ho, it's off to work we go.

        So we’re building a new studio. ‘That’s good,’ you say ‘you need a new studio.’ Yes, we do. Thanks for understanding.

       

        Here’s a bad photo of it in progress:

There's no such thing as bad photos; just bad people.

        It doesn’t tell much, though I know Jeb was making a Changing Rooms style time-lapse film of the transformation of the once inhabited bedroom from a dirty, scuffed white to an all over shimmering, spectacular, incandescent…grey, which should soon surface. I, apparently, was the worst at painting the walls. No-one specified to me that ‘walls’ did not mean skirting board, carpet, and face. My artistic training consists mainly of drawing imaginary pictures of me going through an intense eight-week drawing class - none of which can be deciphered by the average huumun.

Trewin was very excited about the purple sofa-bed he managed to pick up for £30. ‘It’s a £1000 sofa-bed that I picked up for £30! Try it! Try it out! Mmmm. It’s awesome, right?’ It was awesome. I got paint on it.

So that’s where we’re going to continue work on the new EP - our new little studio set within the picturesque grounds of the Phoria househole. It’s brewing. It’s brewing nicely. There are songs on it.

And so far – no distractions whatsoever.

So that’s that. Life, it seems, is a river of pain with a jagged bed.

Shop here, then.

Tim.

       

Play along.

So I was asked this morning to organise a meeting between four of the five members of the band.

        Play this music while you read the rest:

        (Read it as me with a kind of gruff voice, waking up in my Spiderman bedsheets wearing a coat and hat and smoking a cigarillo. Just a normal day, in OTHER WORDS.)

        The phone called out like a lost child…lost on the streets of loser-ville. I’d lost her/it. I was lost. The sense of loss weighed on me like one of those fruit hats. Lost. Unfindable. This was a game of cat and sheriff, and I’d already lost. My favourite television show was Lost, but that’s over now. Misplaced.

        ‘Hello?’

        ‘Hello.’

        I was at a loss to place the voice. (I was blind.)

        ‘Who’s this?’

        The caller was Nancy Smithington – someone broad I once met down on the four corners of 4^th and 4^th. I was a perfect square, and she offered to look at me, dead, in the eye for a couple-a bucks. I didn’t take the deal. I saved her life that night. Since then she’d always called me, looking for a date. I sent fruit baskets.

        ‘Johnny, honey, you never cawwl me anymawer.’

        That bit is to give you a clue as to how stereotypical her accent is/was/she dies at the end of this story. Oh shit now I’ve given it away. Well, as they say, people always die.

        She read me a list of names. She told me what it was fawer.

        ‘Jawnny, baby, we need these guys. We got shit to do, honey. Get in touch wit ‘em. Call me back. I have diarrhea so I can’t dial the telephone.’

        Damn. Three names and a whole lot o’ nuthin.

        ‘Oh, and baby…’ she said, ‘come round soon. I miss ya.’

        I threw the phone out of the window. I wouldn’t be needing that again, unless someone needed to get hold of me, or I them.

        I swam down the rotten stairs of the building to retrieve the telephone. ‘If I’m going to call these people to get them together for a meeting,’ I said to myself, which brings into question the ontology of the ‘words’ I was using, ‘I’m going to need the telephone so that I can talk to them on that.’

        I called the telephone company to check that the phone was still working. They said they couldn’t tell, but that they’d send a guy round. I told them not to bother – Johnny Macintosh will figure these things out if it takes him all month.

        I called the first guy on the list. No reply. Typical. I called the second. I think he answered, but it sounded like he was just pumping air rhythmically through his lips. A secret code, eh? Nobody gets Johnny Macintosh like that. I slammed the handset against the table as hard as I could, and put it to my ear. He was talking, now. A little rough stuff from me never hurt anybody.

        ‘Little man in the phone?’ I said.

        ‘Hey Tim.’ It was Ed. I should have known.

        ‘Johnny Macintosh.’ I said.

        ‘…sigh. What do you want, Tim?’ Still talking in code. It was difficult to crack his nuts.

        ‘A meeting, little man. A meeting. Today. Skype.’

        ‘I’ll be there.’

        Dominoes. Life is dominoes. You knock one over, but if you set the dominoes up properly i.e. glue each one to the table so that it can’t go anywhere, then you’ve got to remove each one by hand, individually. It’s the only way to keep things tidy in this work-one-day world, and I was a tidy little man.

        ‘Seryn.’ I gargled.

        ‘Hey Tim.’

        I spat, and rinsed.

        ‘Seryn, we got a meeting. Nancy wants us.’

        I heard the sound of gunfire.

        ‘I’m a little tied up here, dude. What time?’

        ‘One-ish? Two?’

        ‘That gives me something to live for.’

       

        The sound of death filled my ear. The screams, the gunshots, the burst of explosions. ‘Secure the bunker!’ ‘Get the bastard!’ ‘You’ll never get your secrets back, Dr. Inchera!’ ‘Burden?! I thought you were…’ ‘…dead? Heh…dream on, Doctor…IN HELL! DREAM ON IN HELL YOU BASTARD!’ Bang bang bang boom. 'Oh Seryn, my hero!' 'That's right, Dad.'

        I sent Jeb a telegram. He replied and said it was fine he was just making some beans alongside toast.

        So, my job done, I had breakfast. Eggs over-easy, and a difficult cup of coffee. I squeezed myself in between the two panes of glass in my double glazed window, and wondered how I got into this shape. One woman, a list of names...

One name was missing, I knew that. He’s on the upper-South side, trying to conceive of opposites to left. Maybe he’s got the right idea.

        After all, as Nancy said: We got shit to do, honey.

Bloodworks US iTunes

Bloodworks UK iTunes

Phoria Store

Sept 5th: SoundScreen event at Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, full audio-visual show w/orchestral ensemble.

P.S. Nancy dies of skydiving poisoning.

       

       

       

Thick grey test cape.

The sun is shining, and it's time for The Great Escape.

For those who don't know what it is, The Great Escape is a big music festival based around the city of Brighton. When I first moved to this city, the festival was pretty big. Now it's very big. I'm not saying there's any kind of causal relationship here, but watch the graph happen:

As you can clearly see, there is at least a medium-strong correlation between my arrival (and the subsequent formation of Phoria) and the current popularity of the The Great Escape festival as measured in the Scottish standard TB scale. Again I emphasise, there may not be any causal relationship. I think the very existence of the graph speaks volumes.

We'll be out there tonight at this event, slightly off the beaten track, checking out Wolf Alice and Mt Wolf in particular, both of whom I know I'm currently enjoying. We won't be playing this year, alas, due in part to Trewin's continuing struggle with Lord Hoarse.

On the subject of illness, the Red video has been put in the can, and is enjoying great popularity across the blogs, etc. Thanks to everyone who shares their views on it. It's lovely to have such a nice set of people commenting so positively. We really appreciate the support and all the sharing you guys are doing. Hurray! It's here!:

Lovely. Thank Jeb, Trewin, and Thom Novi at Novi films.

The band are getting together this afternoon, too, to work on more new material. We're going to try and get this new stuff out as soon as we can. I know Jeb's got some mighty fine visual treats for everyone aswell. He's had his sip of tea. Now it's back to work.
What an exciting and productive day we'll all have! Eh? Yeah! Give yourself a big hand. Start your day the right way!

Oh, and click here to purchase the EP, if you decide you want to...

iTunes UK
Amazon UK

iTunes Worldwide
Amazon Worldwide

As always, there's so much on the way. We've locked Seryn in a basement with no chairs and only bid-up.tv on the television until the t-shirts have all been finished. I've also seen what look like a bunch of Phoria warfare frisbees - little silver discs of one sort or another. Next we just need the Ed Sanderson action figure (following our market research, it was found that 73.9% of both genders aged 14-98 found his appearance 'fascinating, compelling and/or worth £15.99') and then we'll have an action figure, some frisbees, and some t-shirts. That's just all of the previously listed items put more concisely. You shouldn't need that. It kind of takes the rhythm out of the end of that sentence.

Have a lovely day, whomever you do.

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.