Phoneyshop

The official photos of our last gig failed their primary objective to show us playing to the crowd, our largest yet. All the pictures perfectly capture the empty region in front of the stage, just omitting the audience. A few hours were spent at the studio filling in the gaps.

The day after the gig, I went to London with Dave to have my eyes zapped with an anti-specs ray gun. My home-made student confirmation letter worked a charm, "CASHBACK!"

Between recording vocals for 54, and finally deciding that the name of 5/4 will be '54', we played around with the repeating sampler. This new toy allows us to record loops, using a foot pedal to start and stop recording, and layer other sounds over the top. With Dave's trumpet, my sax and Marc's nodding head, the loops we produced had mesmerising rhythms with every attempt. There is definitely potential here for a new song. The best part is that we can do this live, but at risk, however, of placing our testicles in the unpredictable vice of electronics.

Dave spent a couple of days getting a rough mix of 54, to be sent with our applications to summer music festivals. The deadlines for band applicants start over the next week, so getting this mix finished was crucial. The next week will involve getting influential contacts who can get our feet firmly in festival doors.

The Academy Factory

After every gig we play, we always produce little gems of wisdom such as: "we won't leave anything until the last minute", "we'll leave early to give ourselves plenty of time to get to the venue", and the classic, "we'll make sure we have plenty of EPs made". Well as well intentioned as we are, it nearly always descends into a bit of a last minute panic.

The week before the gig was a bit of an odd one, marc was away skiing, I was working full-time, and Pete was busy doing, well, nothing. In the madness, we had all forgotten about making a new batch of EPs for our big gig at the O2 Academy 2, in Islington. Realising this on the Sunday night (the gig being on the Tuesday), and having allocated Monday to practice, we had left ourselves no time to get the EPs made. Luckily Pete managed to pull some strings and get the paper EP cases photocopied at his friend's workplace (our thanks go out to a certain Amy).

We had decided that as our sound check was at 4pm, we would use the free time before the gig to manufacture EPs. This venue was the first one we've ever played where we had our own backstage boudoir/chill out/dressing/green room. It had the standard mirror, desk, and beer fridge. It also had odd looking little black boxes placed seemingly randomly across the floor. On closer inspection, we read the words "Pest Control" printed on the sides. It was at this point that we noticed the cockroaches scuttling around the walls and floor, and venturing into our coats and bags. They made the big London music venue experience feel that much more authentic.

So amidst the wildlife, we set up our EP factory assembly line. It consisted of Pete and I running the CD paper case folding department, Barney took the helm with the laptop burning the discs, and Marc had the all important job of placing them in their cases and sealing them with a sticker and a small drop of blood; we received some odd looks from the other bands playing that night as they walked past our assembly line.

Due to the last minute nature of the batch production, the quality and finish of the EPs was not quite up to scratch. We felt like we were making bootleg Flags EPs to flog on a market stall. Anyway, we managed to make a batch of 50, which we hoped would be enough to cover the growing hoards of screaming fans outside.

The gig itself went brilliantly, we really got into it and we owned the crowd. As we were the last band on, and as all bands always run over, the promoter asked us to cut our set by one song. In the ensuing confusion marc forgot to mention that we had EPs for sale, and we forgot to remind him. We only sold five.