Why is it that every time we have a gig in the winter, it snows? It hardly seems like a year ago when our very, very first live show ever got snowed off entirely…

Thankfully the snow started too late to completely wreck our Water Rats gig last night, and we got a good showing — extra credit to all the brave souls who showed up from as far afield as Southend and Kingston. To all those who couldn’t make it owing to the weather, don’t worry, we understand (just come to the next gig instead, you lightweights…)

It was a pretty great night — not a duff band on the bill, a decent venue with a sound system and engineer that actually worked (this is less common than you might think) and that most intangible of assets to any music venue, an Atmosphere. This last can only have been assisted, in our case, by the presence of a large blue dog costume called Clive dancing happily up the front throughout our set. If only his name had two syllables we might have been tempted to change “Johnny Don’t Care” to “Clive Don’t Care”. The new songs “Demon Core” and “Drive On, Driver” both went down very-well-thank-you; we’ll be playing both them again, for sure.

We finished the show, staggered outside for a fresh air and fag break… and gazed at the still-falling white mantle of snow that was draping itself upon London like a satin cloak on the shoulders of a pro wrestler. Oh dear, we thought. We’re going to have fun getting home, we thought.

And lo, it was so. Here’s a tip for anyone thinking of forming a band: if you’re going to play gigs in winter, make sure your bassist’s house isn’t at the bottom of a steep hill on an estate with only one way out of it. Or if you must have such a bassist, make sure his house has comfortable sofas. Having almost burnt out Klepsie’s clutch trying to escape from the roughest estate in north London, Klepsie and Shazomei wound up having to spend the night in Camrath’s living room, menaced by his enormous fluffy cat. We repaid his hospitality by drinking his last bottle of Rekorderlig, though, so the night wasn’t entirely a dead loss…

Should have the date of our next London gig confirmed shortly, so watch this space and keep your diaries free for March until we tell you you’re allowed to schedule anything else. Okay? Okay.