Giggedy Giggedy

The gig at the Grey Horse, Kingston was awesome. The three bands we supported gave their all and the night flew by. 6 Rounds at Sundown, a band from the ACM, were armed with a fistful of AC/DC guitar hooks played by the guitarist with a 12'' Mohawk and sung by the front-man with an Axl Rose bandana. Hayloft followed them, with their set of simple catchy teen rockers. They are a two-piece with the look of the White Stripes (if Jack and Meg White had swapped places). Magnatone headlined, although the audience had since diminished. The band comprises pleasant-looking young men who closed their eyes and immersed themselves in an interesting orgy of guitar symphonies that echoed Pink Floyd (shit pun intended). Good stuff. Thanks to our fans for attending, you made it brilliant.

I have assumed the role of band manager, to find and book the gigs. Every month we plan to play one gig that is just within our reach, in attempt to expand our horizons as quickly as possible without tripping over ourselves. We were offered a big one at the Watershed in Wimbledon on 23rd September, where we will support Acoustic Ladyland (who's second album was the Jazzwise album of the year) and Chik Budo.

As a part of my duties, I have made a list of all the music venues stretching from London to the South coast and started a catalogue of contacts from newspapers and radio stations. I have never drunk so much coffee. Especially not the lethal strength that the Joysons brew – I may have to staple my eyes closed to get any sleep tonight. But that all depends on how engaging Steve's stag do will be this evening (shit pun intended).

Flags The Plan...

Why do so many people live their lives, happy to be unhappy, to spend it doing a job that they either hate, dislike, or think is okay? I would guess the main answers are money, responsibility and commitment. Fortunately for us, we have neither responsibility nor commitment (unfortunately we have no money). We are wild young things that are willing to grasp life by the lapels, swing it over our heads and shout 'Freedom' at the top of our lungs. We want to live life for the fun of it, we want to enjoy every day, and when we're old, deaf and secrete the associated unpleasant odour, we want to look back on life without regrets. Naïve? Idealistic? Perhaps, but then again, there are some people out there who've found their happiness. We want to be like them.

So, about two years ago, when we were all still stuck at university, we hatched a plan to pursue our dream to make it in the music industry. The plan was simple enough; once we'd finished our courses, we would spend four days a week working in the band, and spend the rest of the time supporting ourselves with part-time jobs.

Over the last year we've written some great tunes, built a studio to record them in, and have finally managed to get our heads around producing a decent mix. The date that we’d been waiting for finally came at the end of May when I finished uni. Since then it’s been non-stop; we’ve played and booked some awesome gigs, have got some innovative ideas for promotion, and are just putting the finishing touches on our EP.

Our time is now here; we’re at the start of the rest of our lives. Here we either fight our way up the ladder to successful happy blissfulness, or slide down into a cesspool of miserable despair working the 9-5 rat race of unhappy yet secure gloom.

Time will tell...


(Apologies for the OTT clichés and metaphors in this one.)

Hair, Wear and Vanity Fair

Working on a band image. Tight T-shirts in black and dark trousers with a gleaming belt. As we all have weedy little arms, we've gone for the long-sleeved. To picture Dave with a new hair-style, we used the faithful Photoshop to bodge one on from the Internet (see picture). Cool dude.

The deadline to finish the songs and have them up on the net is approaching us like a piano dropped from the tenth floor. 7am starts (actually just one) and working through the nights, we may just do it.

Thinking about means of advertising. Having our band plastered on plectrums, pens, diaries, mp3 players, balloons, Frisbees, T-shirts, bottle openers, beermats and even condoms. Need to get the bass drum skin done, too.

Finally finished mixing and mastering our first tune Tracks, which has been stewing through Cubase for over a year. It's changed more times than Muhammed Ali's radio station. Kieran from fellow band Stone Soul has come in for an evening to play about with some ideas for Gypo Jack, the second of three songs we need to finish by tomorrow. I wonder if I can get hold of Bernard's watch on eBay...

Music of the Night

This week we have had a number of late night sessions. I put pen to paper and written some decent lyrics for the currently named '5/4 song idea'. Catchy title? No. As well as lyric and melody ideas Pete and Dave have been trying to work on some simple harmonies (see video below). Work on Tracks continues. We have set ourselves until Saturday to complete the mixes.

In the mad rush to get the songs sounding great we took a bit of time off on Saturday to work with a musician called John H. He's got a song called 'Feelin' It.' It's a great song so we are doing our best to not ruin it in the recording. I've decided to take a real back seat on this one and just steer the project from behind the computer. Dave is on piano and Pete on drums. We will be doing some more work to this song tomorrow.

Barn the Bass

Barney, an old maths tutee, has agreed to fill in the bass-shaped hole for our gigs over the summer until he starts his A-Levels. It's only when we try to teach our songs that we realise how bloody weird they are. He's come up with some funky funky lines that we'll be recording over the next few days.

I've spent a couple of days on my own re-recording some drums for the hellish mess of a project that is Tracks. Out with the synthetic snare, in with the real deal.

It has become clear that my memory is comparable to that of an Alzheimic goldfish. After forgetting tonight's plans, Dave asked me to look up at the ceiling and to tell everyone what T-shirt I put on this morning. I knew it had long sleeves, the rest was pure guesswork. Got it wrong. It didn't help that I had also worn it for a few days in a row. Omega 3, anybody? Or is it 4..

Wasp extermination

A steadily growing swarm of wasps developed outside the studio window, so we got a ladder and sprayed a jet of water into the gateway hole in the soffit. No change. We threw balls at it, which flew over the house. I went to collect them and got talking to a 'well fit' primary school teacher called Sonya. By the time I got back, Dave and Marc had Sellotaped a wasp spray to a pole and, while up the ladder, used a broom to spray it. They fell out of the sky like Icarus - HAVE IT!

You're So Vain... Happy Birthday Dave!

This week we had our pictures taken, as part of the ongoing work to build our website. This was the first time we have had someone in to take photos of us. I found it hard not to feel awkward with a camera pressed up against my face. I could sense the feeling in my facial expression, similar to that of a dog's when it's aware its owner is watching while it takes a dump. I digress.



















Our initial first draft of the website was Flash-based. After spending endless hours learning what Flash was and how to use it we managed to build a rudimentary site, which... sort of worked. However, after lengthy discussions and ideas we decided to avoid using the format of other bands' website designs. Instead we came to the conclusion that we should steer clear of over-the-top, Flash-based consumer propaganda. Re-inventing the standard 'official band website' design was an atypical Flags challenge. So we had our logo redesigned and Dave and Amy Ricketts (from MoreGood Design) began working on a much more simple HTML site.

Getting tight for live performances is one, if not THE most important target for us to reach. To be able to do this we need to be able to hear each other through our headphones. So far Dave and I have hidden away in the control room, away from Pete's dangerously loud drums. This allowed us to have individually tailored mixes at comfortable levels. There are two down sides to this set up:

• We can't see each other or communicate properly. Dave has to use a major or minor chord to express his positive or negative feelings. Pete has to go through a lengthy process of yes/no questions using a snare to answer 'yes' and the kick for 'no'. As you may gather setting up this way is crap.

• Pete gets lonely and depressed.
  

A set of headphones with high attenuation (blocking out a lot of sound) would allow us to play in the same room by cutting out the drums. We tried out a pair of Direct Sound Extreme Isolation headphones. £80 later, we found the only extreme these registered on was the crap-scale. They had the same attenuation as our £25 Sony headphones. Back to the shop with them. The Beyerdynamics Dt150s have been recommended globally by music shops and studios.

On Wednesday it was Dave's 22nd birthday. Unfortunately his present from Pete and I still hasn't arrived. Fingers crossed that it will arrive tomorrow.

After Pete's phenomenal cock-up frying fish fingers, we hope tonight's chicken fajitas will have less of a carbon aftertaste. Then poker with Palo Nutini's iTunes festival gig in the background, which I went to see last week.