PIP PIP, 2011

What ho!

Our last show of the year is at The Old Bell in Derby this Friday. Generally spiffing chaps Buttonpusher shall be our gracious hosts, and we shall be sharing a stage with Southern Records' Action Beat and Derby's finest, Cheap Jazz:

Come along and say hello!

This'll be our last show for a little while, as we're planning on taking the first quarter of 2012 off from playing live shows. We'll be spending three months working alongside Brian Eno on hot new reality TV show "I'm A Celebrity - Get Some Kraut In Here!". The series follows Olly Murs as he attempts to audaciously rebrand his image using electronic ambient pioneers Cluster as his musical template. We're providing arrangements and style advice.

Actually, we'll be writing new songs and recording old ones for an EP to be released in the Spring. Exciting stuff! Watch this space'n'all that.

MENTAL GIG

Ho!

Yesterday we played in the West End Shopping Arcade, Nottingham as part of Hello Thor's takeover of the excellent enterprise The Music Exchange. Our good friend Rich Dundas of obtuse cinema renegades Kneel Before Zod filmed the first two songs of our three song set:



It was a bonkers experience, but a very worthwhile one. We thoroughly enjoyed collectively confusing so many ordinary members of the public, and watching the reactions of baffled shoppers slinking past our amplifiers provided a constant source of mirth. Highlights from the above video include Aaron dropping his sticks twice in the space of about ten seconds; an angry old woman; and two Community Support Officers whose appearance momentarily convinced us that we were going to be shut down by THE LAW, but who instead walked on by as if nothing was happening.

A complaint from a neighbouring business meant we could only play for 15 minutes, but they had attempted to impose a 10 minute curfew and we played 5 minutes longer than that, so GUESS WHAT, WE STILL STUCK IT TO THE MAN, HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES.

Thank you to Anders and Nick from Hello Thor, Joey and everybody at The Music Exchange, and to Rich for capturing evidence of this bizarre event on film!

SLACK BASTARDS

We have dismally failed to maintain this blog in recent weeks. Rest assured, dear reader, that this does not betray a contempt for our comrades in cyberspace; rather, it is merely indicative of the fact that we've been busy as buggery (not least with learning 16 covers for a wedding band we're playing in, but that's a whole other story.)

Despite the pressures and obligations of quotidian life, we've still found time to play a few shows and are playing a few more. And most immanently, this Saturday in a shop! Where you might easily be fooled in to thinking we were celebrating the annual capitalist festival Christmas Sales Drive© .

However! This isn't any old shop. This is The Music Exchange, a charity music shop that not only sells splendid records by splendid people, but also funds Framework, a homelessness charity doing vital work with young and vulnerable people. It's a frankly excellent venture, so please, in the spirit of the original Pagan festival that Christmas Sales Drive© usurped, come along and lend your support.

We're on stage at 3pm!

We have one other show lined up before Christmas, on the 16th December in Derby (see Shows and shiny new blog post next week). Then we'll be taking the first quarter of 2012 off from playing live to work on some new material and finish recording our first EP. No future? Pah!