Supersonic 2009

Some photos from this year's Supersonic Festival here: http:
//www.flickr.com/photos/sumlin/sets/72157622873687340/

Here are a few:









And here's some film of Earthless covering Cherry Red by the mighty Groundhogs. Enjoy:

MTV Video Music Awards Video Of The Year

SPECTRUM

We know. We know. We said we wouldn't put on anymore gigs and we meant it. Then we relented and did the Xmas Covers Party, how could we resist?

And then our long time bud Jason Holt went and joined Spectrum.
Now, Team DY are very pro-Kember, as is the term. We've been consistently blown away by Pete (aka Sonic Boom)'s output over the years and none more so than the recent re-invigoration of Spectrum. The full live band version of the group right now, in 2009 is ON FIRE as anyone who saw them at either the Social or Primavera Sound this year can attest.
So when we saw Spectrum had been added to December's ATP Festival at the request of curators My Bloody Valentine we enquired about setting up a warm-up show for them in Nottingham. Something simple, in a small venue where their ability to blow you away can be increased to it's maximum potency. They said yes. In fact, they said they'd love to. Lucky you...
Even luckier still, we're keeping it stupid cheap on the door (price TBC) with no advance tickets so even if you are going to ATP the next morning you've stil got no excuse to miss this evening of total sonic overload. It's going to be amazing.
In addition to Spectrum, you also get the murky, stained glass riffery of our own KOGUMAZA who are folks from Wolves Of Greece, Not In This Town, Lords, Felix, Bob Tilton and more doing fuzzed out Velvetisms pitched somewhere between Lungfish and those cool instrumentals that made the first few Blonde Redhead records so good.

There'll be more to be added too, maybe some DJs as well. Will keep you posted...

It's going to be SIX QUID ON THE DOOR, NO TICKETS. Doors at 8.30 or so, please be on time as it's a small venue.

http://www.sonic-boom.info/
http://www.honeyisfunny.com/kogumaza

Christmas Covers Party 2009

We couldn't resist the lure of a truly hideously boozy night in aid of charity and festive cheer so once more we bring you the (6th) ANNUAL CHRISTMAS COVERS PARTY, this time on Saturday December 19th and this time in the splendid confines of the Bodega Social in Nottingham.
A brief synopsis: Nottingham's finest bands pick 2 secret cover songs, learn them to perfection, arrive at the gig, get drunk, dance to Wham, forget the covers, try and play them anyway to amusement and surprise of also drunk crowd who have warm Ready Brek style glow in the knowledge that they have given a fiver to Cancer Research. We all go home happy.
Here's what I ended up doing for last years event: http://honeyisfunny.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-elvis.html

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=180085228504&ref=mf

Come along!

Kogumaza On Your Telly

http://www.babelgum.com/4008071/rockfeedback-recommends-kogumaza.html

Thanks to Tim and the Rockfeedback folks.

FUCKING FUCKING FUCK

My lack of recent entries is down to moving house and the related internet set-up hassles that go with living on a road that's not actually a road (long story). I can deal with that. I can deal with the poorly insulated front room that's like a meat locker. I can deal with acid jazz floating in from next door. I can deal with all 200 of the neighbourhood cats using my lawn as a shitpot. I can deal with doing tons of DIY despite being awful at it. I can deal with paying for everything while my g/f goes to work but yet pays for fuck all. I can deal with having no fridge.
And so on.
But I couldn't deal with a central heating system that appears to have been designed by Laurel and Hardy. So I called out a heating engineer. He concluded that, whereas I picture a relationship with my boiler that involves cosy nod-offs on the sofa and strolling round the house in my pants in February, what is actually going to happen is either this:



or this:



Leading to it being turned off forever and stickered like this:



Leading to another December like this:



unless I can find enough of this:



to buy one of these:



Bah.

I'm Becoming James May

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/columnists/jamesmay/6408789/Its-Ferrari-time.html

Has James May been reading my Blog?
I guess, unlike me, he can afford one at least.

Stage Blood In Your Area...

...if "your area" is Manchester, Leeds or Glasgow.

OCTOBER
29 Manchester Academy 3
30 Leeds Brudenell Social Club
NOVEMBER
1 Glasgow Oran Mor

all w/Dananananakroyd and Dinosaur Pile-Up. Doors at 7 and the Blood are on first so get some chips on the way or something. Possible new song action, probable scratched heads at poor quality riff-rememberance. From me anyway.

Stage Blood Myspace: www.myspace.com/stagebloodtheband

Bilge Pump Shirts

At long last, Bilge Pump have T-shirts in preparation for their upcoming European Tour. I designed them (on a 2 inch square Post-It note in the pub), Norm printed them and Balders is seen modelling them above in a very, very sexy manner. Gringo will have them in the online shop soon...

WWRRSSDDRRWWSS

While I am on the Blog-recommendation trail, Sean Wars (Liverpool based illustrator and noise maker) has a Blog mainly concentrating on his splendid poster art: http://wwrrssddrrwwss.blogspot.com/

Go on then...

Silver Currant

Great man of fuzz, echo and wah-frenzy Ethan Miller (of Howlin' Rain and Comets On Fire) has his own blog and here it is: http://silvercurrant.blogspot.com

Monk's rules to live by are awesome:
http://silvercurrant.blogspot.com/2009/03/monks-rules-to-his-band.html

"You've got to dig it, to dig it - you dig?"

Mind Control

In 2004, the Wolves Of Greece rock band/theatre group were invited to play a very large show with the lovely Lightning Bolt in The London. This was, as they say in the industry, a "Big Deal". A few days before the gig our singist, Simon, sheepishly called us all up and said he couldn't do the show because something important had come up. Upon being pressed, we managed to get it out of him that he had tickets to see hypnotist/mind bender/trickster Derren Brown perform live. We were outraged and applied so much pressure to poor old Simon that he sacked off Derren and did the show. It was fun.It made a list of the loudest gigs of all time as well, I might add. Though Simon did quit the band shortly afterwards.
So, what's this got to do with anything? Well, how times change because all I've done is watch Derren Brown for the last 3 weeks or so. Today I am staying at a friends', waiting for the keys to my new house, sitting around all day with nothing but a laptop and I am actually excited at the prospect of watching 4 On Demand all afternoon and the many Derren Brown related programmes available.
Who gives a shit how he predicted the lottery ultimately? It was a televisual event (the clue is in the title) like I remember from my childhood when everyone at school, even the teachers, would want to discuss it the day after. It was something that got people talking and rather that than a bunch of mentally challenged people locked in a house shrieking "ohmygod!" for 24 hours a day surely?
Anyway, Derren Brown's Blog is always good for a read, even when it contains (admittedly quite decent) impressions of Stewie Griffin.
In summary: more hypnotism, less noise rock. Simon was a visionary.

Rowan Maeve

Yeaaaaahhhhh! Nice work Elv & Jo!

Tony Bailey

I just caught wind via the internet that Louisville drummer Tony Bailey (left) passed away. I didn't know him at all, other than him drumming in the other band named Lords (above) in their first incarnation and the correspondence between our two bands over sharing the name a few years ago.

I don't know the circumstances of his death nor want to know anymore than I do but what leads me to post on the matter are two things.

One is that Tony was part of a gig experience that legitimately changed my musical life. I managed to get myself to Derby in 1998 for the Mogwai/Aerial M show at the Loft. It was no mean feat I might add. I think I stayed on someone's floor after missing my train/bus home. I don't recall. I have a few photos from the night that I'll scan in once I move house. But anyway, it was Mogwai I was going to see. The idea of doing instrumental music was a pretty fresh one to me then and not just instrumental music but wordless music still delivered with huge amounts of passion and a not inconsiderable amount of fury. I still look back on the early Mogwai shows I saw as being genuinely amazing, at times unhinged and above all super, super loud events.

But it was Aerial M that night that blew me away. I dug Mogwai of course but I guess I knew what to expect. It's Aerial M that sticks in my mind from that night (and in Birmingham on the same tour). I didn't expect to hear a band play with such a measured approach and to veer not between loud and quiet/tension and release but between awesome beauty and a woozy, sinister edge that to my ears at the time even superceded that of mainman David Pajo's previous band Slint. They blew my mind by barely doing anything at all. Tony Bailey, like Pajo (and Cassie Marrett on bass and Tim Furnish on guitar), seemed to constantly be playing within himself on purpose, like having an amp on 10 and only barely touching it which gives this strange tension to proceedings. It absolutely changed the way I looked at making music and it was almost like I was hearing things I'd wanted to make all along. It's easy to write off that early Aerial M music as part of the post-rock deal that made the underground in the UK so dull for about 10 years but re-assessing it now, 10 years down the line, it still sounds as unique and fresh as it did then.

Secondly, Bailey was just 2 days younger than me. Look at the list of bands he played in and the sheer amount of effort he dedicated to his music: http://history.louisvillehardcore.com/index.php?title=Tony_Bailey

I don't know how he had the time. If everyone making music used this guy's output as a benchmark it'd be just the kind of mass stepping-of-one's-game-up that the world needs no?

New Lords 7"

Sleeve art for forthcoming split 7" between Lords and Black Feelings from Canada on sexy purple wax. We contributed Space And Death Recipe which is a new song recorded after our ATP show in May. Black Feelings contribute Lost Rings Pt.1 which is something of a psych masterpiece reigned into 5 minutes or so. All in all, well worth adding to the shoeboxes under your bed. http://www.weberecords.comWe Be Records has all the info...

Lucia

The riff that comes in at about 2mins is so sweet. Head over to Merge to stream the new Polvo record In Prism to hear it in all it's Brian Paulson-recorded, non-You Tube lustre...

Scene: Polvo Head Office

"Guys, how about we go to this part at about 2 minutes?"
(plays riff)

"Who's for lunch? I think we're done here"

Nathan Bell

Nathan Bell (with Rogério Martins, Richard Ribeiro and Luciano Valério) live in Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 11 2009.

MCFREE!

Lawyer Tone

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS CRAP?
Get back to the office lawyer-boy, your secretary has scheduled a meeting with the Good Taste Police for 3pm!

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!