Abandoned House

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Zomes & Kogumaza European Tour May 2011

ZOMES & KOGUMAZA in Europe, May 2011

WEDNESDAY MAY 11 PARIS ESPACE B

THURSDAY MAY 12 BORDEAUX LE NOVO LOCALE

FRIDAY MAY 13 ZARAGOZA ARREBATO

SATURDAY MAY 14 MADRID ROCK & POP

SUNDAY MAY 15 BARCELONA MOOG

MONDAY MAY 16 TBC

TUESDAY MAY 17 BOLOGNA LAZZARETTO

WEDNESDAY MAY 18 VIENNA RHIZ

THURSDAY MAY 19 PRAGUE A STUDIO RUBIN also w/DANIEL HIGGS

FRIDAY MAY 20 LEIPZIG KAFIC

SATURDAY MAY 21 ANTWERP SCHELD'APEN

SUNDAY MAY 22 LONDON FIRE STATION COMMUNITY NURSERY



CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE LP "EARTH GRIDS" BY ZOMES.
(You should, it's fantastic)

Come along, say hi.

(Tour poster by David Hand)

Kogumaza LP

Kogumaza LP preview. Out May 9 2011 on Low Point on clear vinyl and download. You can hear a full track over at the Low Point Sound Cloud Page.
We open for Deerhunter in Leeds on March 29 (get there early). And then you can buy a copy of the LP early at shows in Nottingham at Chameleon on May 5 (with Ex Easter Island Head and Apalusa) and Bristol at the Cube Cinema on May 7 (with Nathan Bell and more).
We're then off to mainland Europe with Zomes from May 11 to the 22, more details to follow.

More Car Photos

Just added a whole bundle of photos from May 2010's Auto Italia show at Brooklands to my Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157625622606229/with/5324285955/
by way of attempting to start clearing a backlog of pics from last year that are just sitting on my hard drive.






As you can see, I finally got to see a De Tomaso Mangusta as well. Maybe I need to write an entry about how I've never seen a million pounds in non-consecutive notes sitting on a pallet wrapped in clingfilm and then I'll stumble across one of those in a car park too? It looked just as good as I thought it would:

Bilge Pump

It struck me last night, whilst watching Bilge Pump for what I estimate to be the 200th time, that they really are the best band in the world. I've sung their praises in a little more detail here so I'll spare the gushing except to say that the Bilge/Lords Tour of March 2008 was so much fun I didn't leave my house for about a month afterwards. I managed to film a little bit of Bilge every night on the shittiest digital camera in the world and I recommend you ignore the quality and watch some of them now. The Bristol County Sports gig goes in my memory as the best Lords gig we ever did by some distance, concluding with Kush from Zun Zun Egui on vocals and Turps on drums (and Gringo with the quality video camera somewhere at the bar) and then Bilge still blew us off the stage.
The clip above is from Milton Keynes and features the re-appearance of the now-famous "Bletchley Omelette" where many youthful men become so excited by Bilge Pump they strip to the waist and hoist the band above their heads like Gods. Rightfully so.
In true You Tube style there is one comment:

hugboxx
"Lol look at all those faggots"

Indeed.

So here are those clips:

"Bastard Scaffolder" and "Up The Nest" from Nottingham 20/3

"Can I Touch Your Leg?" from London 21/3

"Thank You Very Much" from Bristol County Sports 22/3

"Natural Blonde" plus the crowd playing the drums and a death-defying amplifier leap from Bristol County Sports 22/3

"Dour Hogwax" from Dalston 23/3

"Natural Blonde" featuring Kevin Smith on 'curtain' from Dalston 23/3

Joe embarks on Ian MacKaye-style speech about the quality of the toilets (followed by "A Storm In A Teardrop") from Milton Keynes 24/3

"Up The Nest" thwarted by one and a half pints of ale from Milton Keynes 24/3

Crowd surfing and Turps in the audience from Milton Keynes 24/3

"I Am Perfectly Fine" from Liverpool 25/3

"Up The Nest" from Leeds 26/3

Enjoy!

Kogumaza

Kogumaza is Neil Johnson (Bob Tilton, Savoy Grand, Wolves Of Greece), Katharine Eira Brown (Little Girl With Cherries, Not In This Town) and myself and we have what is (relatively speaking) a frenzy of gigs coming up. Here they are; click them for info:

SEPTEMBER
23 LONDON LUMINAIREw/Bilge Pump
29 LEICESTER MUSICIAN w/Bellini
30 LIVERPOOL JOHN MOORE'S ART SCHOOL w/Bellini and Cath & Phil Tyler and poster art exhibition (FREE)

OCTOBER
8 LONDON LEXINGTON w/Billy Mahonie
9 PORTSMOUTH NELL GWYNNE w/YSNBWATID and Sloath
10 LONDON BLOOMSBURY BOWLING LANES - International John Peel Day

We have also just finished mastering 4 songs (thanks Graham Langley) for release on 2 seven inches on the Low Point and Lancashire & Somerset labels in the near future.

Kenilworth Castle

Kenilworth Castle is a splendid place. It even looks good from a satellite miles above us.
It's been knocked down and re-built countless times and used to stand in front of a huge lake. Queen Elizabeth I is supposed to have tried the first potato in the UK at the Castle. She apparently ate it raw and found it so foul she threw it out of a window. Charmed, ma'am.
Read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenilworth_Castle
I've been round the outside of it hundreds of times but a job doing wedding photos for Katy meant getting to see the inside on the grounds of 'research'. It was the hottest day in memory. Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157622004180758/

Holiday Snaps

Photos from France are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157619327131268/

New Holga Photos

Getting a card box from Peak Imaging every month or so is like a little mini-Xmas for me. Until I realise I left the lens cap on for all 12 photos. Luckily I remembered to take it off for this recent batch:







More here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157614224224605/

ATP Photos

Now showing at Flickr: ATP Vs The Fans

New Holga Photos

Yet more Holgary goodness arrives in the post from the processing lab: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157614224224605/

My Lucky Horse - An Appeal

One of the achievements in my life I am least proud of is that (according to their old website) I have played the now-deceased-but-soon-to-be-revived Highbury Garage venue in London 18 times. That is a colossal waste of anyone's time.
Early on in this procession of pointless jaunts down the motorways of England, I developed a bit of a superstition.
On the Archway Road, in Highgate, there used to be a shop called E.Ploton Sundries that sold art equipment on the right hand side as you come into London. The address is 273 Archway Road.

In the window above the shop is a fantastic ornament of a horse. It's about 12 inches across and looks like it's made out of painted white wood, or maybe even ivory.
Before E.Ploton closed, Flickr user London RIP took this photo of the shopfront and you can see 'my' horse clearly in the window above it on the right:



I have no idea what made me notice it but when I did, the gig that followed went very well. So well that next trip down I made a point of looking at the horse as we entered London.
And so it's gone on. Everytime we go to London for music I have to set eyes on the horse or it's a guaranteed bad gig. I'd even drive out of my way to see it. I have taken a few pictures of it over the years, all from passing cars and all terrible. I even made the band Fixit Kid detour and stop the van on the way back from a gig in Camden that had gone horribly so that I could show them where the horse is for future trips to London.
A while ago, the lovely signage of E.Ploton was removed to make way for it's new tenants Orchid Florists who are still in there now.
I guess the room it resides in is a flat. The horse has been there for over 10 years now easily so it has to belong to someone who lives there as opposed to it being a store room or something.

So here is my appeal. If you own the horse then name your price. I will pay anything within reason for the horse. Or I can trade you something for the horse. Or, if you require some graphics work doing I will oblige in exchange for the horse. If you live near the horse then please relay my appeal to the owners of the horse. If you work in Orchid under the horse then please get in touch with insider information on the horse.
It's become such an important part of my gigging life that I feel owning it myself would somehow align the universe. It'd certainly make my front room look at least 600% more awesome at the very least.

Thanks for reading. I know one day I'll drive past and it won't be there anymore, I'd like that to be because it's in my front room.

New Holga

Some new Holga-ry goodness, this time from France:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157614224224605/

Ouch

Just got back from a week in Les Forges, near Poitiers, in France.

It was a week of excellent tranquility with one exception. After an evening spent exploring meadows, petrified forests, pastures, woods, lakes and the like, I settled down to watch a James Bond film only to suddenly feel a very painful concentrated pinch to the base my erm... "chap". It was enough to make me jump. I feared a pube entanglement until a repeat occurrence sent me scurrying to the loo to check inside my shorts.

Good job I did because one of these was clamped onto my groin:



I had no fucking clue what it was and immediately dissolved into a liquid-like mess of panic based around the quite reasonable assumption that this spider/scorpion thing had just laid it's eggs in my penis. This panic was enhanced by the discovery that not only had whatever it was bitten me, it was hanging on for dear life too. It took me about 3 goes to detach it from my flesh and then throw it down the sink like a big girl before whimpering at the sight of two freshly bleeding teeth marks in my youknowwhat.

Turns out it was a Tick; an external parasite that lives off the blood of mammals. They like woodland areas, especially those with deer and human track areas. They like humid, slightly damp conditions and they basically hang around waiting for something nice and living to be a host for them. The warmth emitted from my flowing short leg was enough to convince this one that my genitals were prime Tick real estate. I'm flattered.

The bad news is they carry all kinds of fucking hideous diseases (mainly Lyme Disease) and there are horror stories online of people being paralysed or going mad as a result of an untreated bite.
The good news is they can sometimes hang about on you for over a day without you noticing and can be next-to-impossible to detach after getting this comfy so good job it chose a particularly sensitive spot to sink itself in and I managed to get rid of it within a few minutes.

Pleased to report no side effects, temperature, swelling or mentalism as yet. Will update with any breaking developments.

Sleep Paralysis

I'm off on holiday to France tomorrow for a week. It's the first non-musical, non-friend-visiting holiday I've taken in I don't know how long.
Now, I'm not exactly a workaholic but then again I'm also not adverse to pulling an all-nighter if the occasional job requires it.
Unfortunately for me, it seems the first couple of weeks of this month have been the busiest time in recent memory and so the occasional all-nighter has turned into "practically no sleep for nearly 3 weeks".
A sudden barrage of artwork jobs (to be posted soon once the proofs are approved by the people approving them) took me by surprise. Then there was the sorting out for Lords playing at ATP to erm... sort out. Then, to our surprise, we managed to score a record and publishing deal with Felix and being managerless I had to take a crash course in "spotting hidden clauses". Luckily, we seem to have associated ourselves with two of the best in the business.
I then finally plucked up the courage to go to the dentist after 10 years and the diagnosis wasn't as bad as I expected. Turns out my cracked and crumbling teeth aren't because I'm rotting from the inside out but are instead down to grinding them in my sleep. Stressed? You bet.
I made a few quick runs to get some as-yet-unprinted poster designs printed and managed to fit in a Felix photoshoot for the album on the way in Milton Keynes or thereabouts. This was immediately followed by a back-and-forth batch of emergency Lords practises in Leeds.
Just as I sensed critical mass approaching, it was time for ATP which was essentially a 3 day bender in the middle of which we apparently played a gig.
Because I hadn't seen enough bands, I booked a ticket for The Jesus Lizard's London show on the Monday after ATP. I didn't think it through. I went to bed at something like 5am on Sunday, got up at 9 to drive back to Nottingham via first Kenilworth and then Burton to drop passengers off. As soon as I got back to Nottingham I met Hoppy from Stage Blood and then met up with Paul Crick who was kindly driving us down. I felt like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas in the scene where he's making dinner for everyone whilst simultaneously being tailed by the police helicopter. But without the cocaine. The only way to deal with it was to crack open a beer in the car.
It was a long day to put it mildly. The only person who looked more tired than I felt was Creston Spiers whose amplifier seemed to have been built to further compound his situation and instead of emitting the sound of absolute rock thunder instead emitted an apologetic cough that accurately summed up the inside of my head.
I got in at about 4am like a zombie and went to bed. I cannot describe how much I was looking forward to going to sleep and that's exactly what I did.
Shortly afterwards I was woken up by what I though was a car outside my window. I remember I could hear the stereo playing Derby radio station Ram FM really loudly. The car lights shone through my blinds onto my wall. I opened my eyes and felt a bit weird. The presence of the car made me really agitated. My gut instinct was that I had to sit up and see what was going on.
But I couldn't.
I could look around though. I could see what was happening but no matter how hard I tried to move (and trust me, I tried hard) I couldn't do it. It was like the moments in dream where you want to scream but can't. But I was awake.
As suddenly as it happened, I was able to move as per normal and when I sat up and put the light on there was no car. No lights. Just my room.
I drifted off again. What seemed like a few minutes later I heard the stairs creak from over my shoulder. I figured Hoppy, who was staying over, was going for a piss. Then I heard the door handle to my room go and someone come in. This completely freaked me out. I was exasperated and wanted to sleep and still a little unnerved by the car incident anyway and then I found I was locked still again. This time was worse as I was sure someone was in the room. I concentrated my efforts to move out of the paralysis but I couldn't do it until suddenly I broke free like before to find no-one was there and my room was normal.
I shit you not, this then happened about 5 times in the space of what seemed like an hour. I almost got used to it.
The following day I looked it up online and it's known as Sleep Paralysis. Essentially it's when the brain chemicals that shut your body down and your waking senses aren't in harmony and your mind wakes up before the rest of you.
It's mentioned in folklore from around the world with fascinating consistency and has even been used to explain away the generic out-of-body alien abduction experience. I can see that. I seem to remember having similar confusing experiences as a kid too.
It may even explain away my broken teeth.
Apparently, it happens a lot to people who are severely sleep deprived which figures.
Thankfully, it's not happened since then but I have still been up until godknowswhen each night trying to finish things off for deadlines. For example, last night I was up till 3am putting the finishing touches to a poster and then today we recorded 2 songs with Lords starting at 10am in Derby, not counting the time it takes to load all my stupid amps into a car and drive there. Which I had to do slowly as I got a speeding ticket last week too.
So, in essence: FUCK THIS.
If you want me for the next week then; tough shit: I'm on holiday.

STG BLD PT 2

March saw a little spasm of gigs for Stage Blood. Much comedy ensued. Vital life lessons were learned. Such as, avoid the Nottingham branch of the Discharge fanclub at a service station at 2am, even if you know them. Phew. Talk is already afoot of future outings and we managed to record 3 songs with Vaselines sound-doctor Kenny MacLeod at the helm which will see release of some form in the future.
The Nottingham gig was filmed in some sort of multi-camera shoot but I'm not sure who by and what for. This You Tube footage wasn't part of that...



We also spent a grand getting a professional photo shoot done for the glossies.

Zomes Tour Photos

Kogumaza had the good fortune of opening up for Zomes on some of their first UK tour last month. We had much fun. Neil drove Zomes for the whole of their tour and has photos of his own but there are a few pics and videos from Leeds, Nottingham and Liverpool over at Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157616873388290/

Bilge Pump Vs Nature

Snowy Wollaton Park, Nottingham

Katy and me avoided the winter shutdown at the start of February and watched England grind to a halt on a news report from the comfort of a bar with hot coffee and sandwiches in Leenaun, Ireland. We got back just in time for the thaw. Good timing eh?

Ireland

At the end of January, Katy and me went to visit Lordy drummer Elvis and ladyfriend Jo in their new home in County Mayo, on the West Coast of Ireland. It truly was like being on Mars. What a bonkers place. There are loads of photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157614797613499/