A Boy & A Girl With A Cat & An Eel
Quick UK tour update:
Day 1/2: Anton emailed me a few hours before our flight and mentioned that Andy Metcalfe could not make it to the Brighton gig and would I like to sit in on bass? Of course I would, although now I needed to learn 5 songs and go on stage 2 hours earlier than I was planning. Aside from a slight detainment at Heathrow regarding our Cavern paperwork, the flight and van to Brighton went smoothly. We flew all night, landed in London at 1:30pm, and made it down to Brighton by 4:30, just in time to have a quick cup of tea and some toast with John, our Brighton host. We were one of about 20 bands playing that day at the Alternative Escape Festival so we mainly hung around the club area & the Pier so we could see some other Recharged Radio artists and take in the atmosphere. The set with Anton went well, and the Corner Laughers set was surprisingly good despite all of us being jet-lagged and airsick. The laser focus practice regiment paid off, as we seemed to hit all the notes & harmonies. There was one freakout moment when we realised the drum set had no snare or bass pedal, but luckily Morris from Three Minute Tease lent us his. (Did I mention he used to be a SOFT BOY?) Afterward we went to a showing of "Sing-a-long Wickerman", which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
Day 3: I woke up around 3am and couldn't get back to sleep so as soon as the sun came up (surprisingly early here, a little after 4) I went for a walk around Brighton. KC met me in the park at 6am as we had pre-ordained and we had a coffee date, saw some sights, and retrieved Karla from the house so we could go back to KC's hosts' place and walk their two cute little dogs in the park above Brighton. It's a San Francisco-shaped town, with lots of hills and row houses. You'll see photos of all of this eventually. Later we met up with Charlie & Tracy for lunch in the North Laine area before boarding the train to London. We checked in at Earl's Court & almost immediately had to take the tube to Recharged Radio for our 2 hour interview session. This also went extremely well (except for my part, I can't handle live radio; Charlie, KC & Karla are naturals) and will be available as a podcast soon if not already. Jordan, the Recharged host, took us all out for fish & chips (just chips for us) and to the pub where he managed to get Agony Aunts played over their sound system.
Day 4: In the morning we did a bunch of touristy stuff: St. Jame's Park, Waitrose, Munchies, pigeon-feeding, double-decker bus riding, red phone boxes, Abbey Road, Baker Street, etc. The plan was to meet up with our photographer friend Karen to do a Corner Laughers photo shoot around London, however, with our limited internet and phone access we couldn't get a hold of Charlie. We thought he was meeting us at noon at Abbey Road, but by 12:30 we had had enough of watching Italian tourists holding up traffic by recreating the album cover and we decided to head to the internet cafe and track him down. Turns out he was still sleeping and hadn't gotten the messages. This was fine because the afternoon light was much better and I think Karen got some spectacular photos. We did shoots in South Kensington, St. James & in the tube stations. In the evening we did more touristly touring: Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, the river, Caffe Nero, Denmark St., 7 Dials, Soho, Piccadilly, vegetarian bangers & mash, and so on.
Day 5: Bowman made us a delicious English breakfast at his youth hostel and we had another sight-seeing packed morning: Camden Town, Horsehead Market, Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, St. Martin's In The Field. Soundcheck at the 12 Bar was at 5, so we rested for a bit before tubing over to Leicester Square. Turns out the sound guy didn't show up until after 6, so we did some more photos with Karen & tried to hang out with the other bands. I'm not sure they thought much of us, but the gig was fantastic & the audience was enthusiastic (for British people). We even had a guy there who said he traveled an hour to see us after hearing about us from Mike Viola. The other bands were really good too. Anyway, it was a great, great time.
Day 1/2: Anton emailed me a few hours before our flight and mentioned that Andy Metcalfe could not make it to the Brighton gig and would I like to sit in on bass? Of course I would, although now I needed to learn 5 songs and go on stage 2 hours earlier than I was planning. Aside from a slight detainment at Heathrow regarding our Cavern paperwork, the flight and van to Brighton went smoothly. We flew all night, landed in London at 1:30pm, and made it down to Brighton by 4:30, just in time to have a quick cup of tea and some toast with John, our Brighton host. We were one of about 20 bands playing that day at the Alternative Escape Festival so we mainly hung around the club area & the Pier so we could see some other Recharged Radio artists and take in the atmosphere. The set with Anton went well, and the Corner Laughers set was surprisingly good despite all of us being jet-lagged and airsick. The laser focus practice regiment paid off, as we seemed to hit all the notes & harmonies. There was one freakout moment when we realised the drum set had no snare or bass pedal, but luckily Morris from Three Minute Tease lent us his. (Did I mention he used to be a SOFT BOY?) Afterward we went to a showing of "Sing-a-long Wickerman", which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
Day 3: I woke up around 3am and couldn't get back to sleep so as soon as the sun came up (surprisingly early here, a little after 4) I went for a walk around Brighton. KC met me in the park at 6am as we had pre-ordained and we had a coffee date, saw some sights, and retrieved Karla from the house so we could go back to KC's hosts' place and walk their two cute little dogs in the park above Brighton. It's a San Francisco-shaped town, with lots of hills and row houses. You'll see photos of all of this eventually. Later we met up with Charlie & Tracy for lunch in the North Laine area before boarding the train to London. We checked in at Earl's Court & almost immediately had to take the tube to Recharged Radio for our 2 hour interview session. This also went extremely well (except for my part, I can't handle live radio; Charlie, KC & Karla are naturals) and will be available as a podcast soon if not already. Jordan, the Recharged host, took us all out for fish & chips (just chips for us) and to the pub where he managed to get Agony Aunts played over their sound system.
Day 4: In the morning we did a bunch of touristy stuff: St. Jame's Park, Waitrose, Munchies, pigeon-feeding, double-decker bus riding, red phone boxes, Abbey Road, Baker Street, etc. The plan was to meet up with our photographer friend Karen to do a Corner Laughers photo shoot around London, however, with our limited internet and phone access we couldn't get a hold of Charlie. We thought he was meeting us at noon at Abbey Road, but by 12:30 we had had enough of watching Italian tourists holding up traffic by recreating the album cover and we decided to head to the internet cafe and track him down. Turns out he was still sleeping and hadn't gotten the messages. This was fine because the afternoon light was much better and I think Karen got some spectacular photos. We did shoots in South Kensington, St. James & in the tube stations. In the evening we did more touristly touring: Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, the river, Caffe Nero, Denmark St., 7 Dials, Soho, Piccadilly, vegetarian bangers & mash, and so on.
Day 5: Bowman made us a delicious English breakfast at his youth hostel and we had another sight-seeing packed morning: Camden Town, Horsehead Market, Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, St. Martin's In The Field. Soundcheck at the 12 Bar was at 5, so we rested for a bit before tubing over to Leicester Square. Turns out the sound guy didn't show up until after 6, so we did some more photos with Karen & tried to hang out with the other bands. I'm not sure they thought much of us, but the gig was fantastic & the audience was enthusiastic (for British people). We even had a guy there who said he traveled an hour to see us after hearing about us from Mike Viola. The other bands were really good too. Anyway, it was a great, great time.