The secret London warm-up date is set. We’ll be playing Tuesday, August 26th, at the Dirty Water club in Tufnell Park.
It’s a fantastic place to see a band, run by really great people. We couldn’t be happier. You can buy tickets online here.
Visit the Dirty Water club’s website to see pictures from other shows, and take a minute to watch the fantastic Night Marchers video. Yow! Who wants to run the video camera for our show?
Then I guess you’ll want to know the dates, right? Ask and ye shall receive:
Tuesday, August 26th: secret London gig (venue *almost* confirmed)
Thursday, August 28th: Irish warm-up at The Spirit Store, Dundalk, Ireland. Tickets online here.
Saturday, August 30th: The Electric Picnic, Portaloise, Ireland. Tickets online here.
Mrs. Pirate Palmer, you may thank us in person later.
dig the new outro.
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That’s how good the rehearsal was last night.
It’s the first time we’ve rehearsed the full line up since last October when we first tested the idea. Raymond, Damian, Ciaran, and Brendan have been rehearsing instrumentally for a few months now, and I’ve been singing in my bathroom. It was sublime.
First we ran through the pop hits. Hey Venus, Big Decision, Sensitize, Infinite Thrill, Tingle, Shangri-La, Good Thing… holy crap. How come we didn’t have permanent residence in the charts? These songs are GREAT, and they still sound fresh to me. Sure, I’m biased. But I’m right. It’s like that poster I’m seeing in the tube stations for Jeremy Clarkston’s new book: “They’re back. And they were right about everything.”
Then came the rock songs - Catch a Fire, Detonate My Dreams, Abandon, Scumsufing. Wow. They’ve worked out some new arrangements for Abandon and Scumsurfing that will blow your socks off. It was loud, it was powerful, tight, melodic… it was freakin’ great.
Day off today, then a day long rehearsal on Saturday. We should have news about warm-up dates after that.
We’re gonna play.
This summer, at the Electric Picnic festival just outside of Dublin. The festival runs August 29th - 31st. We don’t know when we’re playing yet, but there are no single day tickets, anyway. You’re in for the entire weekend.
Some other great bands have also been announced. This should be a real treat.
For more info, check out the Electric Picnic Site.
Here’s the next track in the Mark Goodier session.
You can all thank Kate for this (and the remainder of these that I post).
Mark Goodier show, live from Belfast. We were on fire, if I do say so myself. It was one of the best, if not the best radio performance I remember doing.
True story: at one point during a stage dive a necklace given to me by a very dear friend exploded. I didn’t realize until after the gig, at which point I jumped into the audience and started collecting pieces of the necklace.
Of course, being Petrols fans, a bunch of folks immediately cleared out a big circle, and four or five got down on their knees with me and picked up all the pieces. I still have the necklace to this day - my friend Victoria rebuilt it when I saw her next.
<sniff>
I <heart> you guys.
s.
Hey all -
Here’s a track that probably very few of you have or ever heard. It’s on a Beefheart tribute album called Fast & Bulbous that came out in ‘88 (holy sh*t that sounds like a long time ago). It’s interesting for a number of reasons. First, it was recorded around the time of End of the Millenium, so we’re still messing around with samples and dance rhythms. Listen closely at the end, and you’ll hear the Ohio Players. That’s right, the Ohio Players. And it’s perfectly in tempo, and in the right key!
Then there’s also a “Big Flame-esque” section that we added to the song. It’s interesting as a historical artifact - it sounds a bit glued-in to my ears now - but taken on its own, it does sound “Beefheartian.” (I remember John O’Neill saying this about Circusville at our second or third gig at the Mean Fiddler in 1986) And it just goes to show the vast spectrum of music we were absorbing at the time - from Curtis Mayfield to Big Flame, Beefheart to Bambatta. It’s no wonder we encountered a few growing pains.
Anyhow, enjoy. I’m not sure whether to put this up as a podcast or a download - I guess for now I’ll put it up as an in-page player, and also as a link to download.
Oh - freakin’ far out. The PodPress plugin does it all automatically for you. Thanks, PodPress!
As some of you have noticed in the forum, it has been awhile since we’ve posted to the blog, and there are rumours a-flying, so let me take a moment to try and put things into perspective.
Things were moving along very well - maybe a little too well. As noted below, we were accepted for a SxSW slot, and we made progress with both UK and US agents, secured digital distribution for the back catalog (the part we owned, anyway), and a few other things. Once things got to this point, we had to make sure we could meet all the committments, since it was getting close to the time when we’d have to start signing bits of paper.
As it turns out, we couldn’t.
Putting a band (back) together in your 40s is quite a bit different than it is in your 20s. There are jobs, marriages, kids, and hundreds of other things to consider. The matrix gets even more complex when you try to align these elements across all the band members. When one person can get time off, the other has a deadline at work. Where one person needs X to pay the bills, another needs Y. Suffice it to say that it’s a far cry from “Get in the van! We’re going to France!”
So where does that leave us?
The folks at SxSW were very understanding, and invited us back whenever we’re ready. The agents understand that this is going to be tricky. Ditto for distribution, publicity, etc. Hell, we never officially announced that this site was up and running. A handful of you true believers have found it, and that’s heartening in itself. So fret not - we’re not going to be on the road this spring as originally thought. The fall is a possibility, as is spring 2009. It’s still too early to tell.
But definitely stay tuned. It takes a little longer for old guys like us to get a full head of steam going, but we’re definitely headed in the right direction.
Just saw Control the other night.
I loved it.
Not only was it beautiful to look at, (did we expect any less from Anton Corbijn?) but it was also a great portrayal of what it’s like to be in a band when you’re first starting out. And it was also great that they didn’t glamorize it at all - it was quite bleak, to be honest. And the pacing was quite slow. Some of the folks I went with thought it could have moved along a little quicker, but I thought it was perfect. And the fact that they played all the versions of the songs used in the film was even more impressive.
Definitely worth seeing.
