The touring test.

Where have you been?

We've been to Nottingham and Leeds, on the first, very tiny leg of our tour. Sorry to those in Glasgow who waited, with flowers and chocolates and other gifts and warm hearts, no doubt, for our scheduled arrival. We had to postpone. We'll be there soon enough, I hope.

Vanny van van, up to Nottingham. Looong vanny van van. Straight in, straight to the Rescue Rooms venue. Park up, load out, then follow one of the members of the other band around a million and one corners and roundabouts around and around again to our designated parking zone. Up and about, wrong turn after wrong turn, bundling around in our oversized van. 

Tired, then...soundcheck and...where's the dressing room? Oh, it's upstairs, up through another myriad maze of corridors and carpetless staircases and fire exits. Tired...

Tired...

Corners and unseen protractions of space and locked doors and unlockable doors so you have to press the button that resides on your right ankle if you hop on your left. Press it and then apply no more than 5lbs of pressure but no less than the gravitational force of the world's most recently birthed sheep. That's it. Now, the next door is a bit more tricky...

...but

WHAT'S THIS? A comfortable room filled with FOOD and a fridge filled with COLD BEER and WATER and HAM and LETTUCE and CRISPS and CARAMELLY BISCUITS. TELEVISION and an XBOX and a LARGE, CLEAN TOILET and all sorts of wonders. Nottingham makes you work for your destination, but boy were we happy to come across food for five and a kettle and a well stocked white box full of cold stuff. Nothing more settling for the 'first date of the tour'.

Really nice gig, really nice people coming up to us afterwards – thank you all for your kind words and support. If you're coming to one of our future gigs and aren't sure if you should come up and slobber over us once we've finished our mind-blowing set, then don't hesitate – just do it. We're nice, sometimes, and we will tell stories about you to each other in the van, afterwards.

We had time to spare, then, following the Glasgow cancellation, so we got to hang out in the city and spend some time with our totally random and very generous host who put us up for NOTHING but love and a cheap meal. We saw her giant print of a piece of broccoli that she'd hitch-hiked back from Barcelona, and made a pretty much consistent racket in her dining room with our new found table football obsession.

We went shopping, like professionals do, and it turned out that later in the day, on a stroll, after visiting one of the many characterful pubs that Nottingham has to offer, that Jeb, Ed, and Seryn, wondering about in the street, had been recognised by someone working in one of the shops. I don't think we've been recognised in the street before. The worker, however, was too shy to come out and say 'Hello' and so, apparently, her friend/co-worker had come out to tell these three fools that there was someone inside who wanted to say 'Hello' but was too shy.

Shy, too, however, were these fame-stricken fellows, unaware of how to take this as anything but news.

'Cool!', then, was apparently the comment of the day. Their resultant shame and embarrassment at not having gone in to say 'Hello', when I met up with them again later, was a joy to watch. They too, it seems, turn shy when presented with these situations they are not used to. I would, obviously, have promptly marched into the store raspberrying my own triumphant fanfare, scaring any would-be conversationalist into submission before their gag reflex could get them fired from their work.

These three superstars, however, struck by indecision and too much Curb your enthusiasm, carried on about their day in anxious awkwardness and indecision, leaving, no doubt, a curled up heap of Phoria fanhood fastened to the floor, the dents made by knees on carpet healing only as quickly as the hope-shaped hole punctuated into this poor person's psyche.

Anyway. A non-story, but a little insight into the curious oddities that can, on occasion, beset us.

Onwards, then, after much wine and whisky, to Leeds, where it was hot.

We hit the 'waiting' wall, a little. Trapped in the van between the back of the venue and a commercial car park, humming, 'hacking the sack' as those boys do, and just...waiting.

A nice gig, not without its slight technical difficulties, but still those who came were again kind and enthusiastic.

'I want to get home, tonight.' - Trewin.

Leeds to Brighton, then, leaving at about 23:30.

Mission.

Coffee and Subway.

Another service station. Another grand palace of worship to the consumption of convenient foodstuffs and cold, white floors. More toilets, designed like a labyrinth where every door leads to a new hell. The doors to someone else's floating poo are adjacent and unmarked.

Some of them kipped, from time to time. I was front-row-centre, jeering the two swapping drivers into wakefulness with cigarettes and mint humbugs and the standard 2am conversational patter. Grotesque scenes of a sexual nature, twisted into necessary decisions. Would you rather? What would you do if? Which pop singer/musician leaves traces of his fingers behind? Eh? Can you guess?

Prints.

Prince.

Long.

Drive.

Home at 6am. No sleep since Nottingham. We even hit a traffic jam at 3am on a diversion from the M1. In a fit of joy, we took the nearest capillary lane that lead South. One wrong turn turned it into a horseshoe. Back in the queue. Where does this lane take us?

Someone else's farm.

Back in the queue.

So now we have a couple of days off in Brighton before Leicester on Tuesday.

Here are the dates:

22nd July - The Cookie Jar, LEICESTER
23rd July - Oakford Social Club, READING
24th July - 60 Million Postcards, BOURNEMOUTH
25th July - Birdcage, BRISTOL
26th July - The Sunflower Lounge, BIRMINGHAM
29th July - The Castle, MANCHESTER
2nd August - Farm Festival, BRUTON

Come and see us, do.

We're much more interesting than these posts make us appear, and much more likely to sell you merchandise and give you aural pleasure.

Sit correctly.

Tim

P.S. If you live in any of those cities and want to have some fun and give us somewhere to sleep, get in touch through any channel you can think of. Facebook, email, twitter...

We'll try our best to make it worth your while and something else about sleeping at yours for free, please.

Oh it's time for FUN. EH? ISN'T IT? EH? YE

                Right. I’m supposed to tell you about the photoshoot we went for, aren’t I? That’s the kind of thing that usually turns up on here. I tell you about the horribly early morning that only took its toll at 9PM yesterday, when I looked at my phone (goodbye, horology for the unenthused) expecting it to read ‘late into the night’ when in fact it read ‘you just bombed the town of Circadia’. 

                I tell you about the journey up. Five of us facing forwards in a car, having a puffy-eyed laugh, rather than rattling about in the van with the threat of a cymbal stand in a face-hole looming its chromed head at every red light.

                Then I say that we arrived at our destination, in a kind of ‘phew’ tone. A feeling that even this description of that phenomenon has managed to induce a little. Don’t ask me how it’s done. And there’s the bare sarcasm, layered thickly like the similes that often appear here, too.

                Then a funny thing that happened. Something relatively small but humorously magnified. Ed was worried about something in a sandwich, or Trewin realised he’d left his washing on a goat so we had to rush home. Something like that. Nothing like that really happened. It was literally a normal day with very little adventure. The photoshoot was fun and we’re very grateful to Rhona for doing it for us. We’re either getting more professional or more boring. I see no evidence of eitherTHERE’STHATSARCASMAGAIN(hee hee ho, mateys!)

                So we’re back in it now; back in the actual description of events rather than an attempt at having fun with the format. We just drove home. That’s literally it. We said loads of funny things and talked about the shortcomings of various Hollywood franchises. People in a car. You know how it goes. Imagine times you’ve been in a car with people (not that time you parked around the back of the industrial estate because your divorced friend said she really wanted to try it but needed someone there in case ‘something goes wrong’ and then you realised that in fact you have a fear of gloveboxes so you vomited all over her skirt and she had to drive you to the hospital because you were starting to retch your leg bones up around your ribs and through your dribbly, bile smeared lips) I’m really out of ideas and still very tired have a nice weekend I’ll let you know how we get on with the new material next week.

Happy Mothering Sunday.

Tim

My idea of 'chilling out'.

            What a great gig at The Old Market on Monday night. Efterklang were great, the crew were so friendly and professional, and, shucks, you the audience stood up and listened and applauded and got drunk and smiled and put on a new pair of trousers and sank and put a parsnip on the wall and touched the snail and did a little dance and wave, just for us. For this, we thank you.

            A quick apology to those who may have been queueing at the merch stand after our performance only to be turned away by the guy hawking the Efterklang stuff. We’d failed to inform said guy of any of the prices (so he couldn’t inform you when asked), and we’d forgotten to…you know, attend to our own merch stand. We did get there in the end, and all was beautiful. If you missed out on buying it from us on the day, or have just decided that in fact you do want that t-shirt (perhaps as a gift for Grandma?), just click here to fulfil your wildest dreams.

            We were all so knackered yesterday, but we hung out and drank tea and had a meeting and sorted out stuff for the future. Focus, ahoy!

            What are we doing today? Well…chilling out, for the most part. I’m going to spend some time investigating the very interesting Conservative MP Peter Bone (such investigations shall hereby be known as ‘Boning’) and the Midlands Industrial Council as part of my interest in the bill currently worming its way through the House of Commons to withdraw from the European Convention of Human Rights (the first attempt to pass a similar bill was shut down several years ago, but the new one has the word terrorists in the title, and so has been gifted political teeth). Peter Bone – who is sponsoring the bill - has also supported bills meant to: deport those seeking political asylum; limit women’s reproductive rights; and reinstate the death penalty, two of which, I believe, are due for a second reading early next year. He’s also the brains behind ‘Margaret Thatcher day’, which is just the best idea ever and has not yet been thrown out. He’s also part of this political group who seem to have been bought forward in time from a Victorian salon, and believe in 'proper pride in our nation's distinctive qualities'. Allow me to indulge in sinister innuendo, if that sort of thing interests you at all.

            I mean, all of those things sound like a right lark after running several disasterous companies and receiving money from dark coalitions who don’t have to declare their members or their means of income (also: employing your own wife as ‘executive secretary’ and plonking her on the highest allowable MP's secretarial wage), but I am just, you know, full of hate for those who clearly so desperately want to selflessly improve this country for the citizenry that they represent. So, I’m genuinely going to spend my time looking further into it/him today for my own sanity and knowledge, and that’s why I’m telling you about it. 

            Back to business:

            The others might be making music or videos.

            Don’t forget that inbetween all the Boning we’re playing at this very lovely gig in Notting Hill for Communion this coming Sunday 3^rd November. This is a bill I can support. Come along. We’ll badger you until then, anyway.

I hope you’re having fun.

            Tim

I'm getting marred in the morning.

I'm not quite sure where I can start, what I can and cannot say, who I can and cannot implicate, and how on earth I'm going to make this record of a simple chain of events at all readable given my current state of mind.

On Friday evening we left Brighton for Salisbury. Salisbury being nothing more than a stopping off point for the next day's event: a very secret w*dding at a very s*cret location. Jeb had to be there first thing in the morning, acting as resident film-maker. I'm looking forward to the 360 degree epic that comes out of that computer in six months - get to work, Jeb. Again.

Friday, then, was filled with generous parental supervision, casual chats, a grandmother (not Ed) and not enough sleep.

Saturday morning; we hear that Jeb (having been on a different schedule to the rest of us) successfully screwed up his mission of 'waking up on time' and/or 'picking a tie'. We hear this from Ed as he bounds into the back of the van (shortly before finding the door and getting in), looking annoyingly fresh-faced and 'awake'. I am slumped in the corner at this point, instant coffee scouring the inside of my arteries, and a townified dread of spending the next 24-hours in a shit capped field forcing my features down towards the glorious, life affirming tarmac that streams past beneath us.

'Where are we going?'
'...erm.'

Somehow Ed had memorised a set of directions through unknown territory, in a part of the world, beautiful as it may be, where green fields are all. Turn left at the green field, and there should be a green field on your right. Go past the green field until you get to a green field... Where are my industrial estates and gastrocombustible drive-thrus? Where are my screeching Vauxhall Corsas and blackened brick walls that haven't been touched since 1994? No, this is not home. Here there is sunshine, clear blue skies, and grass everywhere. Don't even get me started on the weird patchy brown things in the fields. They look like they have eyes. And legs. Get me a billboard, some over-priced coffee and some gobby knob to bump into, for I cannot cope out here in the wilderness...

Eventually, with Trewin expertly working the steering wheel of the van I had adorned with a rip-roaringly clever and hilarious swear-word (those masking-tape calligraphy classes clearly weren't a complete waste of money) we pulled in to some indistinguishable field or other and strolled, in jeans, t-shirts, and whatever, into the middle of a w*dding that had to be kept secret. Imagine what that w*dding is like. Yeah. We turned up. Strutting in like a more cocksure tribute to Quinlanck Tarentino.

We were all set-up by 3pm. We were scheduled to play at 8. As we weren't guests, we spent our time in the van. We went to Winchester, and had a picnic in the Tesco's car park. We went into the nearby village, and bought some beers once we realised we were bored of sitting in the van without beers. We sat, we laughed at Ed cleaning an innocent but unfortunately located stain off his trousers, and we realised that if you were going to put an 'Elmon' away, you'd put it in an 'Elmon Cupboard'. We hadn't really started drinking at this point, but fatigue can lead to the worst creative and spiritual decisions of all time.

It is partly to blame for the aimless nature of this account.

So: we played. We played well. The kids liked us. We're not your typical wedding band, but then this wasn't quite a typical wedding. Someone flew their chopper in, so to speak, and I was told there were papa-papa-paparazzi knocking about at the ceremony. Jeb apparently had to muscle in to get the essential shots. You go, Jeb. Later, when people started to leave, we felt safe to enter the wedding area itself and start a party. I don't really recall an awful lot of what happened next, as I accidentally...well, you can guess. I recall winding someone in a suit up to the point of red-facedness, I recall trying to play the blues at 2am with frankly uncontrollable fingers, I remember Seryn and I hijacking the disco, lying in the middle of the dancefloor with Radiohead blasting out and over us. That may have been the highlight, for me.

Morning, then, and it seems to me that Trewin has decided to drive the van around in circles and start altering reality so each individual object has a distinct and moving double of itself around three centimetres to its left. Two days of 'sleeping' on floors or chairs, and I am battered, bruised, and, frankly, still battered. Oh no, not the rumbling diesel engine. Oh no, not harsh sunlight through the new windows, straight into my eyes, hot dusty air prickling my airways...

A stop off at some motorway 'nutri-hut express' or whatever they want to call themselves, and I order some of the worst food I've ever had in my life. It was just a bread starter - the Warm Bread Trio (which sounds like a South-West jazz band made up of men with white beards and wet breath) - so I didn't expect much, but it was still massively disappointing. The 'Olive oil with balsamic vinegar' looked like something that had oozed from a wound, and the bread was simultaneously soggy yet stale. Boo. Still, my bandmates took pity on me, rather than see fit to wind me up, which was nice.

So, back in the van. I slept. Good lord did I sleep. Then I came home, and slept some more.

So now here I am, writing this almost out of a sense of obligation given an eventful weekend. I'm free from all substances but the essential caffeine, which means the animated thing I live with is going to have to put up with a puffy faced, grumpy old man for however long it takes my brain to get its act into gear and realise that nicotine, alcohol, and whatever else are not native members of its community.

Never mind marriage; that's love.

Tim

Beebie jeebies.

We're being filmed by BBC World today as part of their Olympic coverage; they're going to be asking us about the work we've been doing towards the ICCI 360 event in Weymouth. We're also being visited by the good people of Brighton Noise who are going to be covering the BBC's coverage.

That's all fine - Jeb can answer any questions about the videos and music or band or whatever. I trust him.

What I need to know is: which conditioner is going to give my hair the right shine to compliment my crushed velvet armbands?

As if I didn't have enough to think about!

Tim

NB. I don't mind saying that I actually find this whole television interview thing quite nerve wracking and that sometimes, when nervous, I make silly jokes. There's one above (you remember, the one about Jeb being able to answer simple questions) that I'm not going to point out to you...but then there are two other hilarious gags right there, neatly hidden inside my exposition of another joke.

So, yes...if over the next few hours you see me making any silly jokes (above), it's just nerves, so you would be well advised to ignore absolutely everything I have to say on any subject.

Oh lord.

The television are coming.