Well, the other day it just crashed completely, so I had to reinstall the software from their website. This was apparantly the same as sending it off for repair, and basically wiped everything that wasn’t on the sim or the memory card. As phones these days default to storing numbers on the phone memory instead of the sim it means that I have lost every number i’ve put in there since I got the damn thing last year, so if I don’t call you it’s probably to do with that. Or maybe I don’t like you. It’s hard to tell these days isn’t it.
So it would seem that interestingly* my first gig as a married man is also my first proper solo show.
I’ll be playing at the Halfmoon Unplugged night on Monday 19th January, so please come along if you can. I’ll only be playing a very short set, but it’s only a couple of quid to get in, and there’s loads of other acts worth checking out too. Here’s the listing:
I haven’t actually decided what I’ll be playing yet, but it’ll probably be a mixture of Goodbye Sergeants songs and the other stuff I’ve been putting up on www.myspace.com/mytelephonevoice
Naturally the fact that I can’t blame anyone but myself for anything going wrong on the night scares the crap out of me.
Now I don’t know about you but I quite like Jimmy Carr. We were in a restaurant in Cambridge when he walked in and got seated somewhere a bit hidden out of the way, clearly not wanting to be disturbed. I asked the waitress whether it would be bad etiquette to go and say hi to him and she implied that maybe it would be, as he often comes in and asks to be sat somewhere away from prying eyes. However, I went and did it anyway. I do remember feeling a slight flicker of fear as he had to pause his ipod and take out his earphones, but he was actually very nice. He even pointed out to my wife that she had her finger over the flash during her first attempt at taking this photo. Does he look slightly uncomfortable to you?
Yes, on Friday 9th January 2009, I got married in secret to my girlfriend Vicky in Croydon registry office. Well, the friends, sibling and bandmates in the above photo above knew of course, but nobody else – not even our parents. Most people took the news pretty well when we told them the following day though, and if you know me and I still haven’t actually told you, I’m sorry.
Anyway, we had a great day, took everyone out for a meal and drinks, and it really worked for us not having to worry about excessive organisation and the like.
pretending to sign the book
Incidentally, did you know you’re not allowed to be photographed signing the register? You sign a form and then they bring a fake register that you can sign for the cameras. Amazing.
So I’m sitting on the train on the way home from work just listening to the ipod and not bothering to read any of the crumpled London Paper or London Lites littered around the carriage, when I get a text saying I’m in the paper. For a split second I think it must just be a gig listing buried in the back somewhere, before I suddenly remember answering a load of questions for a friend at work who knows someone who writes for the London Paper just before xmas.
Grabbing a copy as I got off the train not only confirmed that this was what the text was indeed referring to, but also that the promise of not printing our real names had been ignored, and that they’d also printed where we live and where we work. Thanks.
A little while ago I started working on some demos at home of songs that I had which weren’t intended for Goodbye Sergeants, and therefore wasn’t really sure what to do with them. I came up with the name My Telephone Voice for a kind of ‘solo’ project which would include these songs, and would maybe do some shows at some point in the future.
Anyway, if you’re interested, I’ve put some of these demos (Lazy, X, The Roof of My Mouth, Make Yourself at Home) up at www.myspace.com/mytelephonevoice
Woah there. Goodbye Sergeants are playing in London this friday!
Where?: The Watershed, Wimbledon., with Just B, Kenwyn Drive and I Ludicrous. When?: on stage time 21:00. How much?: £5 Why?: Even newer new songs, reworked classics and free promo cds! Which? : What?
It’ll be the last show for a while and should either be a really great one or a shambolic mess so hopefully see you there!
A few years ago I was in a band called Life As An Agent with my good friends Daryl, who emigrated to Australia, Dan, who I played very briefly with in a band called Strip (with Sam LG from Pistol Gang too as a matter of fact), and Tim who moved up north somewhere I think. Anyway our penultimate gig I believe was at the Catapult Club in New Cross. Or was it the Amersham Arms? I remember the gig actually ended in some fairly nasty crowd violence, but before that we had shared a stage with a band called Fondas who went on to change their name to My Luminaries, get signed and release a few singles and a live album.
It’s always nice to keep in touch with bands you actually like, both musically and personally, so it was good to finally see them live after 5 or so years.
Great band anyway, and a great gig too. You should check out the album when it comes out.
Sergeant Buzfuz play at the legendary Hope and Anchor on Wednesday night.
Where? Hope and Anchor, 207 Upper Street, N1 (Highbury and Islington tube)
When? Wednesday November 26th at 10 pm
Also on bill: The Machine Gunners – Ponyboy – Ayo Bamidele
How much? £5 (£4.50 concessions)
I know some people who may read this and think scraping the barrell but I was just so amazed by my cookery skills on Saturday morning I simply had to share this. If you were to look closely, you would see that the yolk of that egg is unbroken, and there is absolutely no shell in the pan. I think that’s pretty fucking impressive. Gordon Ramsey would be proud of me. Maybe he’ll invite me on his show and shower me with expletive ridden praise and go on about I have a real “love for food”, in between that weird kind of jumping up and down thing he does and slagging off Jamie Oliver.
OK, I did burn it a little bit after I took the photo.
One of the things that I find increasingly annoying is when people brag about how much they drink like it’s impressive. You know the kind of thing: “I tell you what, I certainly put a lot away last night!”, or: “well you know me, 1 or 2 pints normally turns into about 8 or 9! You know what I’m like!”. Yes, big wow. It’s for this reason that I am embarassed at having to admit that yet again, I was pretty much well on the way to being ruined by the time we went on at nearly 23:00 at the Marlborough in Camberwell.
This was for 2 reasons: the first being that we’d been there from about 20:00. We were actually supposed to be there at 19:00 but we got stuck in traffic. (God, imagine what would have happened if I’d been there drinking since 7! You know what I’m like! Wahey!! etc.)
The second reason was that the venue were very kindly giving us Free Beer. We didn’t expect this, in fact we rarely do. Only a handful of venues I’ve played in have really gone to town on the Free Beer as far as I can remember. The Watershed in Wimbledon always kindly gives you a few bottles, The Northern Monkey in Leeds were the same, The Swan in Ipswich were actually very generous with drinks and food actually…
Anyway, being on a bit of a money saving mission at the moment, and the fact that I’m incredibly classy, I’d bought some cans from a garage on the way up which I intended to neck in the car and in the street just to get ‘in the mood’, so I was pleasantly suprised.
I don’t know about you, but I always feel a little uneasy accepting free stuff off people who are very nice, but then the more you drink the less uneasy and embarrassed you become, and the quicker and quicker you knock them back. They were also kind enough to give us free pizza, so for this generosity we thank them again, and happily plug them.
Incidentelly, I don’t think the headline band knew there were Free Beers, as they inexplicably left before soundcheck.
One of the other bands on the night were The Perry Lane Sect which were interesting in that they are influenced by Can. Can are one of those bands that it’s kind of cool to reference so I was over the moon when I actually managed to successfully start a conversation about Can with the singer. I’ve never felt cooler. I think I remember Thom Yorke used to cite Can as his favourite band back in the mid-90’s, around The Bends, and talk about how they ripped off the opening track on Tago Mago for Planet Telex.
On to more important matters though, it seems that our very own Matt Jarman has become quite a chameleon, appearing to change his appearance even more often than Sam gets mistaken for Russell Brand. Here he is sporting a hairstyle I believe was fashioned with the help of duct tape:
Now I’m not the kind of guy who really cares that much about what kind of phone he’s got, as long as it doesn’t randomly turn itself off several times a week, send multiple blank texts to the first person in my address book when I speak on it because the touch sensitive buttons are where your ear is likely to touch them, randomly default to speaker phone when I answer it (particularly in quiet areas), or take photos that turn out completely black even when the flash is on. Therefore, the fact that my Sony Ericsson 850i does all of these things, as well as completely freezing up when it’s looking for signal so you can’t even use the camera to take a black photo, makes me want to use it as toilet paper, but then it would probably dial my boss while doing so.
Don’t get one. The only reason I’ve still got mine is that by the time I’d got used to it, I was too lazy to take advantage of my trial period and change it for something else. Lesson learned.
This an instrumental that Matt wrote ages ago. Here’s one of our first goes at it, so a little lacking in energy but not a bad start! I really need to get some new clothes though.
OK so yet again, as we were soundchecking at 7-something and weren’t on stage till 10-something, I managed to be drunk once again despite my best efforts to only have ‘a couple’ beforehand. However, I think it was the best show so far, and it was cool crowd. Also got to hang out with The Sneaks, a pretty cool band from New Zealand who’s bassist James wore a helmet with a mic stuck in it the whole show. Yeah it’s been done but I love that shit.
Matt’s friend Keefer, who is possibly both the nicest and the most tattooed man I’ve ever met, did some videoing too which was very kind of him. You can check out 2 of the songs below: our cover of Biffy Clyro’s Eradicate the doubt (I made a little mistake but it’s not that obvious), and our song Valentine.
Pistol Gang & The Preacher – Valentine
[youtube=http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=YTob0S99C9Y]
Pistol Gang & The Preacher – Eradicate The Doubt (Biffy Clyro)
[youtube=http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=jp6H1Tvw8-o]
I should also emphasise that although you can hardly see me in these videos at all, I really was there. It wasn’t just Sam and Matt and a drum machine. A drum machine wouldn’t make mistakes like that for starters. Also, check out Matt’s tash. Isn’t he handsome? He should definately bring that back.
So it’s taken me a while to write this because we only just got the photos back, but even now I would have to say, that was probably the most ramshackle gig I have ever played, but also one of the most fun.
We had a good turnout considering most people who know us at this stage are probably south of the river, so thanks to everyone who made the effort, especially on a school night. Sorry we played every song about ten times as fast as it should’ve been.
Probably the most memorable bit for me was at the very end during Vaudeville when I was just making a load of random noise on the kit, then looked up to see Sam’s guitar on the stage, and Sam in the crowd with blood all over his face. The crazy young scamp had only gone and split his eyebrow open with his guita hadn’t he! Bless him. Went to A&E and everything. The youth of today.
After my very enjoyable performance with Ratty Rat Rat at the Astoria 2 a little while ago, I’d been meaning to get along to another gig, partly because I wanted to check out the drummer they chose over me, but also partly because I liked the music and thought they were all really nice guys. However, I was disappointed to learn that they’d decided to split up, and that their last gig was on Friday 26th September, which I couldn’t make. Genuinely gutted about that. Anyway, I’m sure Simon, Gary, Chris and Matt will be doing more music in the future, which I will look forward to!