STAYING YOUNG TAKES FOREVER.....

Our new album, Stay Young, will be released this coming Monday, February 24th. 

It has felt like a marathon process, during which I'm sure we have made a heap of mistakes. But its all done now, our hands are clean and we are proud of what we've put together. 

We started recording the album on January 9th 2013 at Seagate studio in Dundee with the magician Graeme Watt. We had about 18 songs in mind when we started recording the album, some never even made it onto tape, others were recorded and then binned. And then there was a couple that were written at the last minute and squeezed in. As usual we had no money when we started the album so, much like with our first album, recording was a fractured process that spread over a period of months, with us going into the studio whenever we could get enough money together for a session. 

We finished the recording in summer 2013, and had it completely mixed and mastered by August. We had grand plans that we would really "do something" with this album so decided to hold off on the release so we could try a get a glorious plan together, get some people involved to help us and really make an impact. Things never really played out as we planned, nothing was really coming together as we hoped they would, and by December we came to the conclusion that we would probably all be dead by the time we were at the stage we wanted to be for the release so we set a date and decided to put the album out ourselves. We figured it was best just to get the album into the ears of the public than to sit on it in the hope that we might by some fluke become international megastars. 

As is a theme with us, we didn't have the spare couple of grand sitting about to pay a PR company to get the album into the right blogs and magazines, and have no mates in the industry, so we continued with the DIY approach and have all spent many nights emailing literally hundreds of media outlets, large and small, in the hope that some of them will listen to the album and perhaps review it. So far we have had one reply, from the lovely Olga at Rock Britain. So our success rate is sitting at about 0.5%. This has left us a bit defeated, and with the sad realisation that with any future releases we are going to have to play the game a whole lot more, and approach it with heap of cash behind us. Perhaps we will become dandy bank robbers or the worlds campest muggers. If we are to suddenly get a heap of great media buzz on our next release you will know that a few of us are missing organs or have done some sinister things that we are not proud of, nothing happens organically. 

I don't want to sound like I'm being a bit of a moan, but I think that we have to be completely honest in everything we do, its all we have. 

Stay Young....

AMERICAN DREAMS

TOYS

KILLING TIME

WAVES

PIGEON CHEST

DREAMERS

WESTMINSTER GHOST STORY

BELL STREET

FUTURE LIONHEART

GOODNIGHT STALLION

FADES

I hope you enjoy the album. 

We never stop writing, and have a ton of new songs ready to go, so perhaps we will release two albums this year, or three. Or maybe we will implode and never be seen again. 

Much love 

X X X

2014

We have been doing all the boring music related stuff recently, the dull things that come with releasing an album. We haven't played a gig since November last year, it is driving me a little insane, I want to get out among the madness again. Here are some things that have been keeping me amused in the down time....

WRITING... album number two doesn't come out for another few weeks but we already have a bunch of new songs for the next one written and demoed. We are not very good at sitting still. Every time we see a good band or hear a good album we want to write straight away. This is the first bunch of songs we've written as a five piece, so that has given an additional creative edge. Who knows, maybe after a dull 2013 we might release two albums in 2014. Maybe, just maybe.

GAME OF THRONES... I am not really a fan of Lord of The Rings. A fact that confuses the rest of the band, one or two of them are real LOTR geeks. I've seen the first two films, and just didn't get into it. Therefor, I didn't really expect to enjoy Game of Thrones. I figured it would be a similar sort of scenario. Oh how wrong I was!!! I got the box-set as a Christmas present and have been totally hooked. I cant sit and watch countless episodes of a show all at once, so the process has been reasonably slow, but I am a fan. I think I may love John Snow more than any other man in history. I love that bastard. I'm about to start series three. I am excited.

WARPAINT...the new Warpaint album is incredible. I loved their first album and EP as well, but the new album is a bit less "jazzy" and a bit more focused, the songs are unreal, and it sounds so bloody good.

THE THE...I bought an album by The The a few years back when I was in the middle of a real 80s post-punk binge, but I couldn't really get into it. That was before I heard This Is The Day, which is one of the best songs I've heard in a long time, I have no idea how I could have avoided it up until now. This lead me to buy the Soul Mining album and I have since become a total fan boy.

STAR WARS...I was a late bloomer with Star Wars, I hadn't seen any of the films until about two years ago, at which point I watched all of them in six consecutive nights. Recently I've been watching them all again. I think I might be getting scared of real life, I spent all of my spare time watching fantasy and sci-fi films and TV shows.

SOBRIETY...without wanting to sound like one of those awful "new year, new me" people, I have so far been completely sober in 2014. It is an odd feeling. Booze was creating too many black moods, so I decided to give it up for a while. In a strange coincidence I now have more money, weeeeeeird.

Essentially I have become a complete geek and hermit this year. We need to start playing live again soon, otherwise I'll be giving up sex as well and turning to Jesus. Save me rock n' roll, save me soon.....

X X X

Shiver and shake...

Its just gone eight am. Each strike of the church bell rings through my body and makes my brain contract, I shiver, close my eyes tightly and take my next step. I can’t quite work out where the bell is coming from, there are two churches nearby but I wouldn’t have considered either of them to be active. If "active" is the correct term for churches? Do they still function, as they would back when they were a central part of every town and city? The process of ringing a church bell is completely alien to me, its such and old fashioned job, like chimney sweeping or lighting street lamps, perhaps its now done through some computerised system. A side of me hope there is still an old guy with a limp and a dusty jacket at the top of the bell town, counting the minutes, rope in hand. I’m sure Google could answer all of these questions, but the thought of getting my phone from my pocket and typing on the tiny keyboard does not appeal to me right now, so I just pull my coat around me tighter and walk on.

I’m going to make it to work on time. I have fifteen minutes until I need to be at my desk, and calculate I can be there in ten if I keep up this pace. I smile at a middle aged lady in a neat two piece suit as I take a corner sharply and have to step out of her way. I’m doing everything I can to seem human, I think that by adding an overly jolly element to my movements I can counterbalance the hell that’s going on inside my body, I imagine the two battling elements will meet in the middle and make me appear like the average weekday morning commuter. This is not working, I catch a glimpse of myself in a betting shop window, I look like some deranged tramp-dandy, tipping my cap at all who pass, giving a crooked smile and a wink through a blackened, blood-shot eye. The length of my jacket, and the fact that I’m wearing fingerless gloves, combined with my current manner, make me look like some street criminal in a Dickens story.

I work for one of those giant global companies that wants to be your friend, that wants to save the rainforest and cure aids, but which makes its million through cheap Bangladeshi labour and underpays its staff at every turn, always concealing quite how much profit it actually makes, instead telling us only that “sales are down” on what they had predicted, therefore justifying another year without a pay rise. A comfortable couch, well stocked vending machine and a wacky lampshade in the staff room keep the workers quietly contented.

You’ll find me in the service side of the business, I’m the guy you call and shout at when the piece of cheaply made, mass produced shit that you paid a whopping £7.99 for hasn’t brought a sufficient amount of sunshine into your life. For the last seven years every straw has been the last straw, yet I’m still here, soldiering on. When you think about it, there are few things that man can’t withstand and turn into a routine over a sufficient amount of time. It is one of our more worrying skills, but a skill all the same.

Nights like last night start out as a coping mechanism for the every day grind, but soon become part of the problem. When half passed ten comes around, and that third drink has been finished, the worries of the day seem eased, your mind has been cleared and you could easily nod off to sleep. In a cruel and irritating twist that third drink is also around about the point that your mind becomes open to the possibilities of the night.

Suddenly its 4am and your on your knees in the casino, picking up the pieces of your mobile phone from a sticky, bright coloured carpet that makes your stomach feel weird, as a permanently miffed bouncer stands over you, telling you its probably time to go home. You don’t have enough money left to get a taxi, so once you’ve completed the walk you’ll have about two hours maximum to sleep this off before the start of the new day. A similar scene plays out far too often, but the lesson is never learned. The idea of working for ten hours only to go straight home and recharge for the next working day makes me feel sick, I want to grab a few tiny snippets of life where I can. Ideally this could be done in the place of the meaningless work I do, but rent, bills and bad habits mean I have to spend the majority of the day in an plastic, overly air conditioned hell. Sleep is really the only part of the day that can be sacrificed.

Going home feels like a defeat, especially in those times when you find yourself free and unanchored, when there is no work to be done, no extra-curricular activities to partake in, and no loving arms to go home to, no one relying on you or waiting for you. Those are the times you start to see into the abyss. It sort of explains the modern phenomena of late night Facebook emotion, thinly veiled calls for help, being alone and without focus is a terrifying thing. I worry in these moments, If I were to find myself floating free over a prolonged period of time how far into depravity could I fall? I often walk the streets, looking for something but not knowing quite what, and sadly it is the quick fixes that are so readily available. I drink to feel something, but that something always turns out to be regret.


 

KILLING TIME

Another blog post to accompany another single.

Killing Time is a song about not getting to do the things that make us feel human. I was uncertain about the first line to start with and considered changing it.

"the tragedy of our lives is that we don't get to spend enough time doing those things that remind us all that we're human"

I thought it was maybe a bit too melodramatic and blunt. But the more I thought about it, the more apparent it was that it summed up exactly what I meant to say. I often have that moment of doubt when writing songs, when a line stands out as being a bit obvious, not "cool" or poetic enough. Thankfully this passes quickly, when I realise that I don't really give a fuck. There are too many songs out there that mean nothing at all, but are just a collection of well known phrases and made up ideas and scenarios, songs about "that girl" or some made up heart-ache, the radio is a constant hum of nothingness.

Killing Time is about all the time spent considering actions, and not actually committing to them. It's about the things we want to do, the things we've promised to do, but find ourselves distracted from. It is a sort of apology I suppose. It doesn't go much further than that.

Killing Time is released on February 3rd, and will be out on most of the big online music stores, iTunes, Amazon and the likes.


KILLING TIME

The tragedy of our lives, is that we don't get to spend enough time,
doing those things that remind us all that we're human.
I'm staying out late at night, and getting up early just to make things right,
I didn't lie when I said that this would be forever.

I don't call, but neither do you,
we're killing time, but what else are we going to do

Another life, that I forgot,
I split my head so I can spill my thoughts,
I twitch in my dreams from the memory of something better.
I'm giving up all I've got,
your kisses fail when you smile so hard,
I want to be the one to make you whole to make you happy.

I don't call, but neither do you,
we're killing time, but what else are we going to do.


X X X

Another story about a bus...

We do what we do to get by.

We do what we do to get by.

I repeat this to myself over and over, sometimes quickly then at a slow rhythm, rolling over the words like some old time dance. This calms me down. We are all flowing with the tide, I may not like or believe in half the things I’m doing, nor does the man next to me or the group behind us, we just need to get through the day.

The number 28 bus can be a minefield of extreme personalities at the best of times but tonight there seems to be added spark in the air. I would usually swing into the single seat behind the drivers booth on entering the bus but tonight its occupied. I’m filled with the same dread as when the self service tills in Tesco are off, I’m going to have to go in deeper, human contact becomes unavoidable. I catch the eye of everyone I pass, their gaze darts swiftly away, the last thing they intend is an invitation, and I cant blame them, in these cramped conditions no one wants an obviously clumsy six foot plus male with an over filled man bag as a neighbour. I awkwardly position myself in the first space I come to, one knee squeezed against the seat in front, the other one floating around the isle, like a hinged gate on a canal, occasionally pulling in to let the traffic through.

Three separate men with three separate Staffordshire Terriers have gotten on at the last three stops, each time a mini crisis ensues, barks and shouts, tuts and sighs of elderly indignation. The scene fades back to a tense silence in the time it takes each man to find his seat.

In front of me are two men, both of whom I would age between fifty-five and sixty, real working class former "lads", on route home from an afternoon of betting slips and flat lager in the dim corner of a timeless pub. I can’t help but eavesdrop on their conversation. I find myself becoming more and more endeared to them, I decipher that one is an eternal bachelor, the other a widower, both probably heading back to a one bedroom flats, to Fray Bentos pies and TV shows that they don’t really appreciate. There is a sadness in the manly bravado they try to put across to each other, the desire to remain masculine in spite of the ever increasing frailty of their age. I can’t help but see myself as them, in years to come when life has had its way with me, taking quiet joy in mid-afternoon socializing and evenings alone with the radiator.

Things then take a dark turn when a young couple get on at the next stop and sit in front of these two men. As soon as this new couple starts to talk it is apparent that they are not from round here, they speak in a language I can’t understand, which sounds Polish or perhaps Lithuanian. I now watch as one of my old gents aims a thumb at them and shakes his head, with a look of disappointed anger on his face, his friend nods in agreement. They say nothing, just gesture and nod. Surely they only thing worse than a racist is a cowardly, cloak and dagger racist. I think I would have almost preferred it if the two guys had had stood up and actually abused this couple, had thrown them off the bus and made a real scene, the way the actually conduct themselves is equally as sickening, but also horribly sad and dishonest. As the bus rolls up towards my stop I see one of the men make the shape of a gun with his fingers and aim it the couple in front, he pulls it back and puffs out his checks, quietly acting out gun shots, his friends smiles and quietly agrees. I step of this bus, angry and instantly reflecting on what I “should have” done. Tap these old bastards on the shoulder and verbally confront them? A firm slap across the back of both greying heads? I make the short walk to the front door of my building, having done nothing, and decide that it was possibly the best course of action. I kept my head down and I got by. The old men played their disgusting roles to each other, they feel personally impressive, and they get by. The couple know nothing of this episode and they continue living there lives. Three Staffordshire Terriers sit loyally by their owners. We do what we do to get by.

BELL STREET......................

We released a big bad new single called American Dreams this passed Monday. I wrote a little blurb about the song a few weeks ago, so thought I'd best do a similar thing for the b-side, Bell Street.

Bell Street is song about the fear that you might be losing your mind, as each new day blurs into the last. It was written last year when I had two weeks off work, and found myself spending each day sitting at my kitchen window, reading, staring outside and listening to my neighbours bump around up-stairs. Me and Mikey J used to live in a bottom floor flat in a pretty rough part of Dundee. Our landlord had given up on fire safety and put bars up outside the windows to stop people smashing them and breaking in. Each day I would have to look through the bars to see the world outside. Often I would spend hours staring at hole in the wall at the bottom of our shared garden, through which I could see overgrown weeds and grass, and dark wooden structures. I would sit and dream about the Narnia-esque world that might lay beyond that wall. Only months later did I take the initiative to go and look over the wall and through this hole, and was saddened to find a garden much like mine.

Sometimes when you've sat motionless for hours, looking between a phone, book and television you start to feel so numb that you need something to spark you back to life. Sadly that can often mean following some filthy white rabbit down an alcohol fuelled hole in the ground, into a wonderland of vice and stupidity. And in Dundee there is one place you are sure to end up if you get caught in the act of drunken foolishness, the homely police cells on Bell Street.

I made a weird DIY video for Bell Street, by filming my legs as I went about my day over a two week period. I then pieced it together into an odd, sea-sickness-inducing short film. The video can be found on Youtube. I would share the link, but my laptop is being difficult at the moment and refusing to open certain websites. I blame the computer, and refuse to believe that it has anything to do with my "interesting" search history.

BELL STREET
I will sit and count the bars on my window
and start a faith from the hole that's in my wall.
I've been treading water like a champion,
I hear my neighbours but I don't know their names...

I'm running on empty,
I'm running on nothing at all,
running on empty,
I'm giving up....

I slept for twelve hours today
tomorrow I wont sleep,
I dream by day and choke myself at night.
The man in black says he's taking me down to Bell Street,
'cos I've been acting funny in the town...

I'm running on empty,
I'm running on nothing at all,
running on empty,
I'm giving up....

I'll stagger through this town,
a saviour is all I want.
Bad poets will turn into clowns,
what's freedom when there's no one around....

L O V E xxx

American Dreams.....

We shall be releasing the first proper single from our new album on Monday November 18th. It is a track called American Dreams, and features the song Bell Street as its B-side.

American Dreams is a song about all the throw-away, Americanized phrases and semi-emotions we use all the time to get us through each day, the things we say to make ourselves seem more interested in - and interesting to - those around us.

We are expected to always be on the point of some deep emotional conflict, always involved in some drama or melt-down. But generally we are not. It is more and more difficult to feel anything in the wipe clean, sterile society we now find ourselves, so perhaps exaggerating our emotions is the only way we can make ourselves seem human.  I'm not sure really, I could go on and on but my eyes are heavy and I only really sat down here to put they lyrics down in written form, so here goes......

AMERICAN DREAMS

Tell me do you mean a single thing you say,
or are you just leaking words?
Giving it a name 'cos everybody says,
"its the time for growing up"

I love you! I don't care! I'm excited! I despair!
Say, is this the dream America?
We can share our fears! You've got issues? Are those tears?
Say, is this the dream America?

Tell me things to make me feel better,
tell me I'm alright,
I love you, you make me feel better,
and get me through the night.

Watching from the front as a generation falls,
we're just looking up from bended knees.
I would rather die as a failure but a trier,
than be just another casualty.

I love you! I don't care! I'm excited! I despair!
Say, is this the dream America?
We can share our fears! You've got issues? Are those tears?
Say, is this the dream America?

Tell me things to make me feel better,
tell me I'm alright,
I love you, you make me feel better,
and get me through the night.


Bell Street is a song about thinking you may be losing your mind, but more about that later.

Big love,

XXX