THE BUZZARD [Section One: "Flannels"]

27th October 2008

Massive handshakes to you all.

I haven’t personally blogged off for a while, so I feel a personal greeting is again in order. My name is Simon,  and these are my legs….

I’ve made a double mattress out of two single mattresses pushed together in my room in Dalston, and I feel quite happy about it. Not only can I now sprawl out like a giant starfish and move all of my limbs about frantically, I can also choose which side of my bed I want to sleep on. Tonight is Wednesday, and that is definitely left. I’m on the left.

Current Ear Electrifiers…

I attended some good music. I popped down the Buffalo Bar in Landan. The line up was nice, Ed Harcourt,  Jeremy Warmsley, Munch Munch, and Three Trapped Tigers.

We went down to see Munch Munch, because we missed their set in Bristol a few weeks ago, and had been crying everyday since, so I needed to see them urgently.

Three Trapped Tigers were fracking amazing… Two humans on synths and another smashing a broken cymbal, all freaking out on a sordid free-jazz bender. They lie somewhere in between Holy Fuck and Acoustic Ladyland in my opinion, and my opinion is worth half a wet cucumber.

www.myspace.com/threetrappedtigers

I first heard Munch Munch about a year ago in Oxford, we were booked on the same bill and we bought a split single which they were flogging. I’ve caught them a number of times since, at festivals and other shazz. The other night they were brilliant brilliant brilliant. They really cut my rug in half, and I love them.

 

Kwes is a producer/ songwriter and reworker from south London, although he sometimes lives up north in Hull because it’s nice up there, and they have a cool aquarium.

Kwes is about to drop his first solo effort into the sea, and it sounds incredible. His compositions rumble, float, and jump around creating a huge ambient soundscape. Check out Hearts in Home for evidence of beauty.

Mixological Trip to Leamingtonia.

I’ve just returned from Leamington Spa in the Midlands, where I have been mixing some recordings with Tim from The Mysterons. It was lovely, we sat in his studio eating sausages and messing around with gated reverbs until we were sick. Tims studio is weird, his mixing desk is on his carpet and you sit around on cushions while you mix, it’s a surreal experience – even weirder than recording things in our kitchen.

Gotsta keep up the buzzard

The ‘buzzard’ is when people talk about your band to other people they know, and they tell their friends, and their mum tells this lady she met down Virgin Active, who tells her pet buzzard about you. She sends this buzzard out flying everyday to spread the word about music to all of the dogs in England. Then all the canines begin to cottonwool on to your music, and then you can make ‘top the 40′ with your songs. That’s what Henry told me.

You can help the buzzard by coming to our gigs, and telling your friends about our band, so ta for that.

WE HAVE RECORDED A “LIVE” EXTENDED PLAYER.

We thought we’d try and record one of our gigs, and then produce it in a interestingish way.

This was a strange process, as we could only perform it once, and we could only record it once. Once once once.

So Tim set up lots of microphones in a big ballroom in Leamington Spa [where we were born], and we invited people down. Lots of people turned up because James Yuill was also playing, and we had a marvelous party with all of our friends and family.

One notable difference when comparing the recordings to other live recordings, is that we deleted the audience noise, and replaced it with some short ambient compositions instead. No offense to everyone who turned up, you sounded fabulous, but we just fancied replacing you with jungle sounds. Just boshed the tracks up on our Myspace page, so have a nosh.

In other news, we just discovered that we are off to America for some shows next year. So we are jumping off the walls and slapping each other facially with excitement.  Woo. But, more about that stuff some other time.

Rahahaha

mwah

x

Simon

Tour Blog Pt 2: “The Forbidden Chalice” or: Post Tour Years – The Madness of King George

10th October 2008

Here we are at the end of the world, still alive, slightly insane and a couple of pounds lighter. It’s been emotional.

White Lies were fantastic all tour, we had a great crack with them all and I’d like to say thank you to them once again.

THANK YOU!

It’s been craz. Total craz. Since last we spoke we have been to Wolverhampton, Nottingham, Sheffield, Bristol, Brighton, Norwich, Newcastle, Glasgow, Leamington, Oxford and London. It took us a long time and so I provide for you here our Tour In Numbers:

411.48 litres of petrol were consumed, as were 1.5 litres of oil, amounting to a total £561.02p. Over 2500 miles were covered.

We played 14 venues over 17 days or 408 hours and spent approximately 70 hours sleeping on mates floors. £80 was spent on travel lodges.

We spent £SHITLOADS on food, with service-station Burger Kings raking-in record profits.

About 204 pints were enjoyed between the four of us, this is a conservative estimate and is probably wrong.

There was definitely 1 bottle of Buckfast, 1 bottle of grappa, at least 3 bottles of wine and 1 bottle of Jack Daniels for Sybil’s birthday.

There were 4 colds, there were 68 hangovers, there were 4 happy half-dead Post War Years.

I shall try and recount things as my frazzled brain recalls them:

WOLVERHAMPTON was cool and we got our own dressing room, NOTTINGHAM was amazing – always love playing the Social, SHEFFIELD was brilliant – the Leadmill is a great venue, BRISTOL was on a boat called Thekla with a dancing man called Jeff, BRIGHTON is always great – a massive venue and an awesome crowd to fill it, NORWICH was a very pretty place and the second church we’ve played in in two weeks, NEWCASTLE was top notch – can’t beat a Cluny burger, GLASGOW was fantastic but one of the longest drives ever, LEAMINGTON – we can’t thank you enough – great homecoming show with James Yuill and Peoples Person Club, OXFORD was a stressful drive but a fun show and always good to see our number one fan Patti, finally LONDON was a fantastic end to a fantastic tour. Night.

After the final show we had little party at our gaff, it was nice. As well as a couple of the White Lies boys there were Ritzy and Rhydian from The Joy Formidable, who have also been fantastic all tour and are great guys.

Thank you TJF and thank you all you kind peoples who came down to the gigs.

That is enough, we now have to spend some time in the studio recording some sounds so you can hopefully purchase them and imbibe them into your swiftly beating hearts.

Fred x

PS. Playing Winchester on Monday 13th and London Tuesday 14th, check myspaz for details x

Tour Blog Pt 1: “The Burning Flames of Death”

23rd September 2008

Hi You.

We are on TOUR. Touring round the UK with a band called White Lies. Touring round the UK with another band called The Joy Formidable. Touring around cities and towns. It’s like cream.

We are going to be doing this blog-off every few days, and also adding pictures of stuff that happens to the Flickr thing [to the right of this page], click on it.

Liverpool

Before meeting up with the White Lies crew in Cardiff, we headed up to Liverpool for a warm up show in a church. The event was curated by the wonderful Wave Machines. It was a strange experience playing electronic instruments in the house of the lord, however luckily we have no songs about embracing Satanic rituals, or that contain any blasphemous lyrics. Thank Godd like.

Here is the stage, which was amazing:

This is not the church we played in, but it was near by and very beautiful.

 

We kicked it down, and then Cats in Paris, a fabulously flamboyant band from Manchester kicked it down too. They are amazing.

Cardiff

 

We woke up in Waveman Tims flat, and drove to Cardiff where we fed some ducks for a bit before sound-checking. Fred got a bit excited meeting White Lies and fainted in the dressing room. Before he passed out on the floor, he managed to papp them with his camera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we blasted audience members with some of our swirly blips, before retiring to drink one beer. Mental.

 

Manchester

On the way to the Manchester show, we noticed a smell like burning turnips in the van. Our front axle burst into flames and we careered onto the hard-shoulder of the M6 in a swervy, ungraceful manner. A nice bloke called Jim from the RAC waggled a spanner around and fixed it, so we gave him a Post War Years t-shirt, which he promised to wear in bed.

 

 

Getting over the travel boredom by listening to wax stag.

More Tomorrow or the day before yesterday.

 

Si

 

x

Tour Time and Tasty Tidbits…

19th September 2008

Mystery melange of mockery

11th September 2008

Strike me down and tickle my face, I’m writing a blog! This is brand new territory for me, so I apologise beforehand if this becomes a loathsome piece of literature. The following rant is written with the slightly self-indulgent presumption that you might be interested in what has been keeping our collective minds occupied, pupils dilated and ears buzzing. If you’ve made it this far and you have no interest in such trivialities, then you’ve made a serious error. Please make your way safely to www.bbc.co.uk.

Otherwise…

PWYs mocked in various European locations

This week was a week for focus, creativity and commitment, however, meeting these targets became a tricky task having anonymously received the following disturbing images:

A llama! If you’re going to threaten us, at least throw it to an animal with sharp teeth!  Who the hell are these people and why do they taunt us so?

Actually, it has generally been a dark week. While on a trip out in Stevenage with the rather talented photographer and all-round nice guy, Tim Cochrane, we found this.

Missing from this picture were a further three bras and a pair of knickers abandoned and left in an empty field. What the flaming kippers?! Genuinely disturbing. In fact, so disturbed by all this week’s events, Tom hasn’t spoken a word to any of us in days and has done nothing but pace around with a stern look on his face and a cigarette stuck to his teeth.

Thus I recommend

In a week that has been sent to test us, we have found sanctuary in a few new delights that I strongly suggest you check. The first of which is our good friend, Kwes. Not only is ‘Tissues’ a melodic luxury holiday to the South of France, Kwes’s production is also braver and more dangerous than William Wallace himself.

I also rediscovered White Williams this week. This might be old news to some, but if you haven’t heard ‘New Violence’  then wrap your peepers around this. If you don’t, Fred will hunt you down and steal your CDs, trust.

If you own one of those DVD players and you find 2 hours in your week to fill with visual stimuli, can I recommend that you watch a little known film called ‘Black Book‘. It’s directed by Paul Verhoeven who has made some of Hollywood’s most cheese-ridden films including, Total Recall and Starship Troopers, but don’t let that put you off. This actually got the dusty old cogs in my brain turning. It’s a WWII movie, but definitely takes it from a less predictable and biased viewpoint than usual. Oh, it’s all in Dutch as well. Enjoy.

One final visual treat for you before I depart. Tom and Fred took a trip up to Dalston market and met an old man selling moustaches. They bought one each. We have since banned such monstrosities.

I will leave you to contemplate these recent events and take my badself round to studio to learn our new songs. We might definitely be playing a warm up show this Friday, probably at Water Rats in Kings Cross. Might you like to come?

Henry x

P.s. Thank you to A + C

14 is the first number in this post. 3 will be the second

5th September 2008

Celebrity Guest Blog Superhero

29th August 2008

So the band provides the crispy shiny sounds, and we eat them up like sequin muesli. A crunchy shiny gulp.

Now listen. Listen good. With your ears and co.

I write this using text, a visual medium suited to the task of COMMUNICATION. Nonetheless, listen you must.

My name is Pete Hathway, and I’m sometimes referred to as the secret 5th member of the band. This is inaccurate, nonetheless I am this week’s guest editor. Pleased to meet you. Pull up a chayer.

Since we last spoke these things have happened:

PWY’s recorded some drums in a place. A place adjacent to a location. It was a Gibson place, littered with glittering GUITARS. A magical place. There was beer, there were drums. I sat on the stage and practised throwing playing cards into a hat (a ‘butcher fedora’, if you must know). I managed 6 out of 52, on average. Not great. Meanwhile Fred hammered out some rhythms on some drums. It was loud. Science captured his mojo and flattened it into a small package.

Here he is:

If you look closely you can see science on the left, latching onto Fred’s noises with flexible metal tentacles.

We danced with JACK WHITE at the Old Blue Last – weren’t expecting that were ye? – and also with the Smoke Fairies, a lovely girl folk/americana/good duo who are FRIENDS of ours. We have no pictures of Jack, get over it.

It was Barbara’s birthday later. Everyone went CRAZ.

We discussed who would win in a chin-up competition between God and Jesus. We decided God would probably let Jesus win, and Jesus would learn something from that.

Anyway, here’s Jeffo and Elspeth looking FIT:

I’m wasted, may be back in a minute, may end it here, we’ll see… ciao

Simon and Henry are arguing.

They say things like “if I’m honest…” about every two seconds.

I think they’re being honest.

Me, Jeffo and Elsie are drinking red wine out of ramekins.

Tonight I saw many a person about town, abaaat taaan, including Late of the Pier, We Are Scientists, Lightspeed Champion, Alexa Chung, Arctic Monkeys and more. I also saw POST WAR YEARS. This is a blog about them though, not bout dem other eejits.

Alexa Chung kept staring at me. Not in a good way, in an unnerving way. I think she hates me a bit.

Erm, someone’s nicked my wine.

THIS IS A BLOG. BLOG IS SHORT FOR WEB LOG. I AM DRUNK.

Fred’s gone to bed. You’ve got a head.

TRANSMISSION COMPLETED. I ‘LOVE’ YOU.

Exact Coordinates: 7958372891d84737h474738hyr3837372

The Newt has flown the Coop. Cats climb lithely. The sawdust is rolling in the pantry. 12 Eagles Sit Naked In Naples. The jaguar is tangled in the brambles.

Over and out.

Love me love me say that you love me

OK goodbye now

xxxx

A Massage Message + A Brimming Bulletin

21st August 2008

Bonsoir Cherie.

It is time for another one. Another massage message. Another brimming bulletin. The weather is grey and moody, and we are combattling this by spending our entire lives living in a carpet-box with no windows or ventilation. We are also wearing protective film over our faces: the see through stuff, to prevent exposure to life.

Tip: Fake Flowers look like real flowers, but don’t die/ drink water/ smell like old relatives/ invite bees into your house with their tantalizing nectar.

1: Musical Must’aves

I want the new Semifinalists album. They create romantic quirk, and I would thoroughly recommend running out of your front door now, screaming their name as loud as you can in the street, just to see if they live near you – ‘coz you never know.

Also… I blogged off a bit recently about Ratatat, who create beautiful crispy electronica. However; what really made me foam at the eyelids was their amazing remix of Wanderlust by Bjork:

They used the original vocal take I think, and possibly corrected the pitch using melodyne [or similar]. The result: remarkable crispy magic-dust.

2. Photographical Pheromones.

Now that I have mentioned some of my current favourite musical magicians, can I also mention some photographic physicians which you should check out if you are for whatever reason BORED OF THE INTERNET.

Here is an example of some work by an interesting photographer [+lyn] who takes pictures of objects, animals and people.

[Click the images for links to more images. Yes.]

Another good picturepilot is Max, who (when he’s not busy running a record label or knitting) takes pictures of his life, and the lives of other humans he observes.

And also, Holy Fuck capture interesting things they see on tour… weirdly fun.

3. Life Excursions

Welcome to the holiday of life. It’s interesting, colourful, and mildly spicy.

We have been touring round life, doing some recording, messing with synthesizers, recording gongs, chopsticks, and other cutlery. These are starting to form into demo recordings, which you can hear on our Myspace page here. We might put another single out soon, we might start a market stall selling fish, or we might move to Ukraine. The possibilities are endless.

At the weekend, we went to Victoria park with the Happiest Horse

NICE NEWS:

We have just confirmed an Autumn tour, supporting White Lies who are fabulous and massive.

It’s gong to be busy, so buy tickets fast, and we’ll see you there.

SEPTEMBER

Cardiff Club Ifor Bach (21)
Manchester Night And Day (22)
Wolverhampton Little Civic (24)
Nottingham Bodega (25)
Sheffield Leadmill (26)
Bristol Thekla (28)
Brighton Komedia (29)

OCTOBER

Norwich Arts Centre (1)
Newcastle The Cluny (2)
Glasgow King Tuts (3)
Leeds Faversham (4)
Oxford Academy (6)
London ICA (7)

Theres some others too, check the spaz for more.

4. A Merry Musical Machine

I suggest that you stop what you are doing, and spend the next five hours of your life composing music with an online musical sewage machine…

I did, Tim [mysteron] did, and so should you. I have given up real instruments, there’s just no point.

Until next week or something.

xx

Simon

Radio 1 Session + Lowestoft + New Tunes

15th August 2008

Back for more? I bet. Well here it is.

We’re here, talking to you, about what we’re up to, and whether it’s any good or not. If you’re in a hurry I’ll give you a brief summary here: It’s all good apart from the bad bits, discuss.

For more detail read on a comfortable chair with a cuppa.

1) Introducing. We had our first Radio 1 live session broadcast a couple of weeks ago. Yes. This was a most enjoyable experience which comprised mainly of numerous cups of tea and coffee, a fair few rollies, some music and an interview. It was Huw Stephens that invited us in so we were on his Introducing show, which showcases new music every Wednesday night, and is generally top notch. Huw also interviewed Will and Max from Chess Club Records this week, and they played a brand new song of ours which you can hear for a short while here. Or for more info about the show check this.

Also played on the show were James Yuill, White Lies and Mumford and sons, as well as Wave Machines live in the studio.

2) Holiday. Last week the kindly Jeff Lettuce put up with us in her house for a week. A whole week. I’ve mentioned this a bit last blog but to cap it all off here’s a run down off this weeks top ten. Whilst in Lowestoft, home of The Darkness, we ate fish and chips, recorded some new material, slept, drank cocktails, had a barbeque and did some Crabbbing. It was a splendid retreat and we are all greatly indebted to Jeffo and her parentals for their kindest kisses.

3) Wet weather. Upon our return we were treated to a trip to Field Day in Victoria Park, but the weather was crap. White Lies, Laura Marling and the headliners Foals saved the day though – it was the first time I’ve seen Foals for ages and they totally blew me away. Top quality sandwich. Afterwards we went to a house party on Brick Lane, where a girl washed her feet:

4) Magic Pete. (I’ll say his name again for extra emphasis, clickable link too, like that?) Magic Pete “the rock and roll magician” has done us the world of good and a new music video for False Starts.

5) Finally. Back to our everyday lives, we’ve got a hell of a lot of new tuneage on the way, a tender morsel of this is already available to you on our Myspace as well as some videos we made when we were bored. Have (sensible) fun with them won’t you.

I think that is all for now,

Goodbye.

LovE

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and a hug.

FRED

PS. We got the Russian Club sign!

Secret Garden + Wild Beasts + Seaside Holiday

7th August 2008

Yowser! I mean hi! Or do I? You decide.

It’s been a while since we last caught up, so I thought I should whisper a few things seductively in your ear over a candle lit dinner with a nice bottle of Chablis.

Lots has been going on – too much for my addled brain to muster in one fell swoop – but I shall attempt to reconstruct our fragile lives using PVA glue and string.

Firstly Secret Garden Party rocked, thank you Gardeners! We got totally lost in a maze of mesmeric music, pretty pictures, pirate ships, water and land, air and earth, wine and beer, basically all the necessary ingredients to make it quite a fantastic festival. While there we partook in a sports day, face-painting, dressing like idiots and general enjoyment of life. It was good.

We especially enjoyed sets from Wave Machines, We Have Band, Metronomy, Ratatat, Micachu, Esser and of course the ever-brilliant Late of the Pier (whose album’s out this Monday, August 11th. Buy it), and have been banging on about them to all and sundry ever since.

For more stuff visit www.myspace.com/micayomusic

We returned from Secret Garden confused and frustrated, as we all had hangovers and sunburn. It was a forlorn PWYs that awoke Tuesday morning to find they still felt like crap, but help was at hand in the form of a set at the 100 Club on Oxford Street with the mighty Wild Beasts, who we love a bit. Playing the 100 Club was a pleasure, although I almost died from rib-pain, which in hindsight is quite amusing. Wild Beasts combine skill with genius to create “skienius”, not the most catchy term I admit, but the music is otherwise.

Also you may find mayhem here: www.myspace.com/wildbeasts

After all the excitement we decided to lay low for a while, making tunes and stupid videos from our secret studio location in Dalston, nipping out only to buy tea and milk. The highlight of this for me was finding PG Tips are doing a 50% extra free deal on their tea at the moment. Bloody great.

After all the tea-related excitement we decided to lay even lower, and nipped off to Lowestoft for a seaside/studio-based holiday, lugging our equipment with us so as to be able to continue creativity. Whilst here, as well as working on some tuneage, we have been on a boat, walked on the beach, played with Jeff Lettuce’s dog, Finn, and eaten the biggest Shepherd’s Pie known to man.

Anyway, despite all this I hope you are well.

See you next Tuesday,

Fred War Year x