No Business Like Snow Business

Our appearance on stage is possibly even more important to the audience than how our songs sound. From a musician's perspective it is pretty challenging for us to believe that performance could be more important than how well we play. After we admitted this fact to ourselves we then began to figure out what the important elements of a great gig are for any audience member. Once we knew what those key emotions were we could then do everything humanly possible that would increase our chances of influencing the audience to have those experiences. This included facial expressions, speech tone and speed, stance, eye contact et al. Basically we would have to act/perform in the periods between the songs.

One example of the small changes we have made is David's facial expressions at the end of the songs. He used to grin but that made us look a little like a cheesy wedding band. Now he is attempting to look happy by communicating it through his eyes. Not only was Dave criticised for his in-between-song-performances but also his Thunderbird guitar dancing. We spent some time trying to explain to him how he should perform with the guitar, a little bit like a scene from 'School of Rock'.

Along with the physical performance we also needed to come up with a confident way to start the set. The opening of Tracks was given a bit of a make-over with the use of Dave's new delay pedal. He will be opening the gig by performing strange reverse delay piano effects along with some subtle delayed guitar with Jack... If he bothers practising and getting up to scratch by Friday. The sound of reverse piano is unusual and should attract the attention of the audience. Also the epic ending of Tracks should win the audience over.

Other than the shit preamp in my acoustic guitar the only thing that is noticeably letting down our sound is the backing harmonies. At the moment they are still very inconsistent in their pitch and timing. Pete has had trouble giving his vocals enough volume to cut through against the bleed of the drum kit, so we have spent some time working on diaphragm techniques so now they just have to practice that with some pitching exercises. In the mean time we will keep practising with the harmonies and hopefully they will get it spot on in time for the gig.

All week the News has been trying to make fluffy white snow terrifying. Undeterred by the irrational warnings from the weather wizards we ventured outside to pose for a few 'bandverts'.

After we got a couple of shots done we decided enough was enough, "let's just piss about on a sledge". A decision Dave may live to regret if his arm eventually falls off from frost bite.

In the white room, with 80s curtains...

Christmas came early this year for Flags. We acquired £3000 of acoustic treatment ceiling tiles that we have glued to the walls and ceilings of our two rooms, creating a more professional studio to record in. The tiles stop any echo that would leak back into the microphones. The best part is, it cost us just £65 in van rental and congestion charge - thanks BBC!

Treating the studio took a full two days. The transition from bedroom to BBC was stark, although the 80s curtains leave an aroma of shite and may need to be changed. Once all work had been completed, the door fell off its hinges, again.


Since my sister handed one of our CDs to Craig Charles in a pub in London, one that she happened to have on her, we had a huge kick up the arsenal to get the website created. All three of us worked into the night in our different houses using Facebook to communicate, laying the red carpet for Craig Charles' inevitable visit and preparing for his imminent request to use our music on his radio show. Days passed without hearing from him, perhaps due to the mindless exclusion of our contact details anywhere on the site.