Poor Man's War

After a fair amount of blagging and pestering, 7 gigs have been confirmed before Christmas. We’ve reserved November to write and record, and even to remix our debut tunes Tracks and Daylight Robbery. In the process of finding venues and booking gigs, I have started to make ties with other bands in the hope we will be offered to play gigs with them in the future. I have included in the e-mails that either Dave or Marc are prepared do unspeakable sexual acts in exchange.

Money issues haven’t improved, with little money coming in from our Sun to Tue jobs. Marc still owes Dave and I hundreds of pounds and I have signed back on to the dole with no business tutoring maths over the summer. Dave’s the only one who seems to be doing all right, but his credit card’s been maxed out after buying equipment and £200 of tickets for the Watershed gig.

When they're not too busy scaring my pants full, Marc and Dave have been competing to get the larger fanbase on Facebook and MySpace respectively, although Marc has since been blocked from sending messages in Facebook due to spamming friends of other bands to become our fans, despite being warned 7 times in a row.

The moment Gypo Jack was mastered, and after Marc and I had finished Face-raping each other, all the sites were updated and large music venues were contacted to try to get gigs. The second after we get the other tunes mixed to the same standard, we’ll start contacting BBC and NME unsigned bands correspondences with hope we will be played on the radio. We found the biggest improvement in the processing of Gypo Jack was the effect of stereo imaging, which can make a chosen instrument appear to come from behind you. If you’re interested in the rough physics, here it is:

Sound is produced by pulses of compressed air, like an explosion underwater would create a shock wave. In a stereo system, a sound can become louder if it comes from both speakers at the same time, because the compression waves from both speakers will double the pressure when they meet. If the wave from the left speaker is released a bit later than the wave from the right, the pressure waves will interfere and the sound will change. If a compression is released from the left at the time a rarefaction (low pressure, opposite to compression) is released from the right, the air will be equally compressed throughout and the sound will deaden. This means you can hear only the sound that is outside the interference region, which makes your ears think the source of the sound is coming from a point further round, even behind from behind. This effect makes the sound feel much fuller, as though you’re within the source of music rather than outside it. It also creates space, which allows you to hear every instrument clearer.

Or as Derren Brown would say, “It’s just a trick”.

Summer holiday

It's late... Very late. Tomorrow I am up early for a meeting about the website design, CD cover design for our EP, and music video ideas. I look forward to finding out what Amy and her gang of design scientists have invented. My week off has made me feel recharged like you wouldn't believe.

The last time I was with the guys was at the Grey Horse gig at the end of last month. I did bump into them whilst they were coming out the studio, Dave was straining as he attempted to slide his piano into the back of his car. For a tiny moment I thought 'oh shit. They've quite. They are packing their stuff and have quit the band'. Luckily that thought was soon squashed but replaced by the even darker thought 'oh shit. They are doing a gig without me!!' As it so happens neither of those paranoid ideas were true and to be honest I can't quite remember where it was that they said they were going, mainly because I was distracted by their bragging of how much work they had done while I was away.

Encouraged by their enthusiasm I have since been working a fair bit myself. The last two days I have been trying to build up our Facebook page and making it even easier for us to update. In the next day or so it will be set up so that we can upload our gig dates on one page and it will instantly update on Myspace, Last.fm, etc. This could, however, potentially lead to us being lazy with our promotion of gigs. It would be very easy to fall into the trap of spending two minutes adding the new dates on one place and assume that is all we have to do.

Pete has been badgering the local printed press to try to get our faces slapped into a few newspapers, so we can promote our supporting slot for the Acoustic Ladyland gig. Also, I contacted a couple of county radio-stations. Fingers crossed but not holding my breath at the chances of us gazing into the eyes of Chris Moyles in the morning... now there's a sweet image!

Where did you come from, Sweary Joe?

We’ve got ourselves another couple of gigs, including a live music night we’re hosting in the Wellington in Walton-on-Thames, featuring, so far, Elissa Franceschi with her piano ballads and funk-rockers Stone Soul.

While Marc’s been off on his break, Dave and I have been busy working on Gypo Jack, or Gypsy Jack as PC Joyson calls it. Joe Reeves, my lifelong friend, has recorded some magnificent acoustic guitar for us. After a few hours of sifting through the takes, I decided to make ‘The Sweary Joe Song’ out of all the profanities. Check it out: