Archive for the ‘news’ Category

Bits of news from all over

Friday, August 5th, 2011

Ahoy there once more. Here’s a quick bunch of updates for you.

Apologies, first off, for the cancellation of the Standard gig on 21 July due to circumstances beyond our control, and indeed the control of the promoter. We’re still trying to sort out a replacement date there before the Standard closes for good (yes, afraid so) in December. We’ll confirm as soon as we know. Meantime, Club Bus Wind, which has been putting on local talent at the Standard for lo, these many years, is planning to continue by hook or by crook at whatever other venue promoter Gary King can find; he’s been looking everywhere from Chingford to Southend (!). Fingers crossed.

Happier news, though, is that on Friday 12 August we’ve been invited to play Club For Losers, a night of punk, lo-fi, goth, and general rootsy rock at the St Moritz club, Soho. Full details are on the flyer (whose design we’re rather proud of — we work on these things, you know) on this very site. (Kudos to Nick Cramp, one of our cleverest fans as well as one of our loyalest, who instantly spotted where we nicked it from.)

In short, though, the doors open at 10pm and we’re first on. So all you hard-working types have time to get home,eat dinner, chill, and change into your clubbing finery. Should you so desire you can stay on after we’ve played for two more bands and then clubbing till 3.30 in the morning (oh, such debauchery!)

We hope that if you’re reading this you’re already following us on Facebook and/or Twitter, but if not, why not? You’re missing our small but perfectly formed (and much more frequent than this blog) pearls of wisdom. Also, we’d rather like to get above 100 followers on Twitter, because we’re insecure and worry that nobody wubs us. Frank Turner has 32,000 followers and there’s only one of him; we have to share our 87 among all five of us.

Those loyal 87 will doubtless be pleased to know we’ve finally got our act together to do some proper recording, and this is actively in progress at this very moment. Keep checking back for progress reports, announcements of which songs are to make it into the project, availability when complete, and so forth. More than one of us have recently had changes in our personal lives which should give us more spare time and energy to devote to what we like to call “music”, so you may wish to start running now.

Rally round the standard, boys (and girls)

Sunday, June 5th, 2011

There have been frequent rumours about it before, but now it seems almost certain: the Standard, after providing live music (and other entertainment) to Walthamstow and its citizens since 1986, is to be sold out from under its tenants’ reluctant feet and turned into a supermarket, or flats, or some such money-grabbing scheme. No matter that E17 already has flats a-plenty, and supermarkets galore (indeed, just up the Forest Road, the former Essex Arms is being transformed into yet another); no matter that E17 has no other dedicated music venue at all.

Live music will survive, of course; live music always does. But it’s a body-blow to all the local, up and coming bands who have long been given unswerving support by the Standard, not to mention that it will knock out a major venue for that genre which nobody will admit liking but which always manages to fill houses, the tribute band.

Of course we must declare that we are partisan here. Our very, very first public gig was at the Standard, and indeed we’re booked to play there again on 21st July. But the principal remains the same. Venues such as the Standard are the backbone of music; without the local support that they generate, without the opportunities that they give to musicians, an important brick in the wall is removed. And if you take too many bricks out of a wall, the whole wall falls down. If you don’t believe us, just ask Pink Floyd.

So let us hope that by some miracle these shameful plans fall through and that the Standard is once more spared by the skin of its teeth. And if the worst comes to the worst… well, the local paper confirms that the incumbent tenants must be given six months’ notice to quit, and those tenants, Paul and Amanda White, are on record asĀ  wanting to “make the most of the last six months”.

You get the message, I’m sure. Get out there and get down the Standard. While you still can. Because this is your last chance.

Romford rumble

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

Less than a week to go now to our Romford gig. We’re sharing a stage with Last Of The Waiting, whose energetic metal-punk should compliment our stuff interestingly. Flyer is now on the site, though (contrary to our webmistress’s remarks) you don’t need to print this one off because the gig is FREE ENTRY! (woo). We just like making flyers, is all (and thanks to the various music shops in Romford that have put them on the counter).

It’s a mighty long way, though it may sound silly, from Romford High Street to Piccadilly

Monday, February 7th, 2011

Which being translated means that we have two more gigs to announce.

One has already been sitting in the box at bottom right for a few days; 16th March at the Bitter End, 15 High St, Romford RM1 1JU.

After that, we’re pleased to announce our first central London gig: 6th April at the Comedy, 7 Oxendon Street, London SW1Y 4EE (between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, and not, I am advised, to be confused with the Comedy Store which is next to it, or the Comedy Theatre down the street).

Need I add that this last one has got us really stoked?

More nearer the time, I’m sure…

Scruples crumble

Monday, January 24th, 2011

We held out as long as we could, but there was no way around it, and we’ve had to succumb: we’ve made a Facebook page.

Note that this does not mean in the least that we like or approve of Facebook; we don’t. It annoys us just as much as it ever did, as witness the fact that we can’t even figure out the URL of the page we’ve made because it seems to vary every time we click something. But this is the future, and just as there’s no point trying to walk somewhere when everyone else is in a flying car, or eating an old-fashioned bacon sandwich when everyone else is subsisting on a diet of three food pills a day, so there’s no point in pretending that everyone in the entire world isn’t going to be glued to Facebook within the next year or so.

So there you go.

But we hope this page will remain our primary web presence and the place where our loyal, adoring fans (ahem!) will continue to come to first for our quotes, notes, news and views.

Walthamstow, re-re-loaded

Friday, January 14th, 2011

Argh! The gremlins are still biting us! The Walthamstow gig has had to be once more rescheduled — we shall now be playing the Standard, Blackhorse Lane, E17 6TD, on Thursday 27th January. Hope to (finally) see many of you there. Off now to update the flyers…

Christmas…

Tuesday, December 28th, 2010

…would appear to be a good time for writing new songs.

Doubtful whether any of them will be finished, sanded down and polished enough for the Walthamstow gig on 20 January, but in the not too distant future watch our shows, or possibly the jukebox on this page, for any or all of “Drive On, Driver”, “Celebration Consternation”, “Goodbye, Charlie Potatoes”, “Awfultown”, “Barbecue” and “The Other Ronald True” — this last being a more than usually cheerful little ditty regarding a prostitute-murdering madman in 1920s London. Let nobody say that our songs don’t have a broad mainstream family appeal.

Our intention remains to make our First Proper Recordings in the very near future.

Walthamstow, reloaded

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

We can now confirm that the Walthamstow gig that was nobbled by snow this month has been rebooked for 20th January 2011. Same venue (The Standard, Blackhorse Lane). Flyer and suchlike to follow shortly.

Let’s hope that the bloody weather co-operates this time (at the moment of writing, more snow is forecast within 24 hours…)

We’re also hoping to have some more gigs in early 2011 to announce quite soon.

Walthamstow gig tonight (2 Dec) **CANCELLED**

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

Or as Ullan gloomily put it, “Donutsh defeated by icing!”

With 40% of the band snowbound, and with one of the other bands on the bill similarly nobbled by the weather, we’ve had to pull tonight’s gig.

We hope to have a replacement Walthamstow date announced within a few days.

Between snow and Icelandic volcanoes, this makes our second gig this year to have been cancelled by atmospheric conditions, and it’s getting rather tiresome…

Ah well, more famous musicians than us are also in a similar boat. Why is Britain the only country where it snows regularly that doesn’t have the faintest idea of how to deal with it?

Status of tonight’s gig

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

Teetering in the balance due to the goddamn snow. Two out of the five of us live outside London and both are pretty badly affected by it. We may have to cancel; final decision on this will be made 2pm or so.

Wish us luck, people. We will be there if there’s any way at all for us to make it.