Goodbye Sergeants update – August 2008
So what has been going on with Goodbye Sergeants of late? If you’ve been checking the site/blog or the myspace you’ll see things have been a little quiet, but that doesn’t mean we’re not doing anything, far from it! The last show the band played was back on June 1st, on the bandstand in Sutton town centre. Pretty random gig really, especially as our slightly-acquired-taste-noise was following 2 acts playing covers, you know of like, recogniseable songs! It was a great gig though, probably the best since MJ joined the band, and people seemed to actually enjoy the tunes too, which was an unexpected bonus for us! I remember the sound guy asking us if we could ‘tone it down’ before we went on; I remember ignoring that, then I remember getting really wasted afterwards and not a lot else. Oh, now I do remember jumping off the stage to go and sing with a child who seemed to be getting into the music, but then stopping a bit short when I realised I was scaring the hell out of her.
So yeah, as for ‘updates’ on GS, we’re currently working on new music, which is why we haven’t done any gigs for a while. Also, we thought it would be cool to have a bit of a break anyway, go on holidays, make music with other people, that kind of thing.
We went into the studio a couple of weeks ago, just before I went on holiday, and just spent a couple of hours getting down drums for 4 new tracks. jon’s obviously the best drummer ever, so it didn’t take him long to nail the parts. We’re then gonna record everything else ourselves. So far, Jules has redone his bass, I’ve re-recorded my guitars, and started the vocals for 2 of the tracks round Matt’s. I have to say, Matt is an absolute genius, not only with the guitar, but when it comes to production, it is just amazing listening to some of these first mixes he’s done, and I can’t wait for you to hear them once they’re finished. I’ll be posting some official updates on the GS site and Myspace when they’re up.
In the meantime, Matt is also lending his skills to another little project I’m involved with…
The Splendour – “Money” video
[youtube=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dLSlMoU8gdE]
Sergeant Buzfuz 12 Bar Tonight
Ok, so thanks to all who showed up/hung around to see us play the bandstand in Sutton! We had a really great time despite our concerns (they also told us to ‘tone it down’ a bit just before we went on, which we basically ignored), and got a much better reaction than we were expecting!
Now, the band have no more shows booked for a while, but I thought you might be interested that I am trading in my charismatic/arrogant/annoying frontman persona to sit behind the drums again for a gig tonight at the 12 Bar Club with Sergeant Buzfuz. Should be on about 9.15, and the set will be dominated by new songs from the band’s as yet unreleased 4th album… tracks from which you can listen to on their myspace (i’m not playing on them before you ask)
here’s the info from the mailout… Maybe see you there!
BLANG @ THE 12 BAR PRESENTS:
12 BAR CLUB, DENMARK STREET, WC2
WEDNESDAY JUNE 11TH
MICHAEL EDEN
SERGEANT BUZFUZ
THE BOYCOTT COCA-COLA EXPERIENCE
and a late set from HEAD AND SHOULDERS
£5
Doors 7.30
Bar ‘till 1 am.
10 45 HEAD AND SHOULDERS
Head and Shoulders are Jowe Head (TV Personalities/Swell Maps/Olive’s Hairy Custard/Angel Racing Food/etc) and Lee McFadden (Alternative TV/ARF). Surreal off-kilter pop songs in bright colours laced with vintage Bernard Albrechtian guitar riffs.
10 00 MICHAEL EDEN
Looped ethereal hymns reverberating from a melting star. Sheffield’s Michael Eden favours leaving the stage while heavy-breathing to the audience through a telephone.
www.myspace.com/michaeleden
9 15 SERGEANT BUZFUZ
“like Nick Cave on the dole” (Sounds XP)
“REM would kill, hopefully each other, for songs like these” (Unpeeled)
“uneasy listening” (Flux)
www.myspace.com/sergeantbuzfuz
8 30 THE BOYCOTT COCA-COLA EXPERIENCE
Nursery rhymes slowed down to funereal pace. Like a narcotic English folk tale version of Patrick McCabe’s ‘The Butcher Boy’ as soundtracked by Syd Barrett and Jake Thackeray.
www.myspace.com/bcce
www.12barclub.com
www.blang.co.uk
Sutton Town Centre Music Festival – Sunday 1st June
So, after our pretty successful jaunt up the M6 at the weekend to play the legendary Cavern Club and Lennon’s, we return to a slightly more local setting for us by playing the Sutton Town Centre Music Festival on Sunday 1st June.
We’ll be playing on the Millenium Bavarian Beer Garden stage (we think that’s basically the bandstand near The Moon on the Hill), at 3pm. We’ll be on after 2 covers acts, so naturally we’ll probably confuse the hell out of everyone, but there you go.
Ratty Rat Rat at Astoria 2 – Saturday 24th May
On Saturday night I randomly ended up playing drums with a trendy indie band called Ratty Rat Rat, in front of a reasonable sized crowd of equally trendy young men and women and the Astoria 2 in London.
I say “randomly” because I auditioned for the band a week before, thought it went quite well, didn’t hear anything from their manager though, then on the Thursday night got a call asking if I could do the gig in 2 night’s time. (Funnily enough, the very Thursday night I’d had a second audition/rehearsal with Sergeant Buzfuz and been asked to join them.)
Anyway, I’d played with the band for a total of about 30 minutes at this point, but thought “fuck it”, in at the deep end and all that. So, friday afternoon I was round their squat in Camberwell that they share with a guy from Shitdisco and the girlfriend of the singer in the Mystery Jets (I told you they were trendy) rehearsing for probably another 30 minutes in some dank, underground basement. I thought it was rather endeering though when I turned up and Gary the guitarist said “please excuse the mess.”
So how was the gig? To be honest I can’t remember that much of it. I remember getting quite drunk to calm my increasing nerves, and then not being able to hear a damn thing on stage, then it all being over really quickly and everyone being pretty pleased with how it went. My nerves weren’t helped by some obsessive fan type called Daniel who claimed the band were his all time favourite and that he’d come all the way down from Reading to see them. When I first bumped into him at the bar I thought he was going to try and get off with me when I casually mentioned to him the reason I was there was to play drums with them.
Turns out I was just filling in for another drummer they actually knew who was joining the band but just couldn’t do that particular gig, but I wish them all the very best as I really like the tunes and they’re nice lads too.
International Pop Overthrow Festival
Goodbye Sergeants are playing 2 shows in Liverpool this weekend as part of the International Pop Overthrow Festival:
at The Cavern Club on Sunday (25th) – on stage 14:15,
and at Lennon’s on Bank Holiday Monday (26th) – on stage 17:00
Check out http://www.internationalpopoverthrow.com/ for more info on the festival, but for your convenience, here are the lineups for the 2 dates/venues we’re playing:
Sunday, May 25.
The Cavern Club.
Back Stage
12:45 Ben’s Diapers
..1:30 Steve Roberts & ZenBank of England
..2:15 Goodbye Sergeants
..3:00 Private Jets
..3:45 Beneva
..4:30 The Generous Days
..5:15 Rinaldi Sings
..6:00 Paul Bevoir
..6:45 Squire
..7:30 The Temponauts
..8:15 The Broken Hearts
..9:00 Automat
..9:45 The Afternoons
10:30 We Should Be Dead
11:15 The Cherry Bluestorms
12:00 Airwaves
12:45 The Anydays
..1:30 Robert Post
..2:15 Jeremy
Monday, May 26
Lennon’s
1:15 Mark Sander and The Evil Geniuses
2:00 The Low
2:45 SideFields
3:30 The Making
4:15 The Generous Days
5:00 Goodbye Sergeants
5:45 The Tamborines
6:30 Peter Colours
7:15 Telaphones
8:00 Keller
Hope to see you there!
Rare London Show – Bullet Bar, tonight!
Thank the Lord for the Art Genius of Jon Shortt for giving us all a reason to get up in the morning! Yes, it’s another beautiful flyer, for another beautifully noisy gig, this time tonight at the Bullet Bar in Kentish Town, on stage around 10:30.
This is our only headlining London gig for a while, and we’ll be playing a load of new stuff, which is obviously very exciting for us, and makes it marginally less tedious for you. Hope to see you there. Check out a location map here: http://www.bulletbar.co.uk/map.htm
GS Play Long Island on Sutton High Street
OK, so it’s not called Long Island any more, it’s now the Mosaic Bar, but yes Goodbye Sergeants are doing a gig there on 3rd April. Me and Jules used to live in Sutton, and Jon still does (kind of why we moved away really), so it’ll be great to play somewhere we’ve been turned away from so many times for not having the right shoes on.
Check out the venue’s website or Chog Town, the promoter’s Myspace for more details.
Number 1 on The Mag download chart
I was just searching for stuff on the band on Google when I should’ve been working and I stumbled across the fact that our ancient demo version of Over So Soon seems to have crept up to Number 1 on The Mag’s download chart for February. Who’d have thought it?
Check it out here.
Al Murray
My friend Tony, who got us involved with Help For Heroes, and at one point was having serious talks with us about being our manager, happens to be friends with Al Murray, so he got me a ticket to the filming of his show Happy Hour with a backstage pass. Very funny show, and when I met the man himeself he was very nice, and a bit pissed, although rather disappointingly on red wine rather than beer. I was also informed that the beer he drinks on the show is non-alcoholic. Still, the beer I was drinking that night was free, so who could complain. I made friends with a guy called Tim too, although he hasn’t yet replied to my email, but maybe it went into his junk folder and he thinks that I’m a twat for not emailing him. Who knows.
I also met Glenn Tilbrook from Squeeze, and stood very close to Peter Davison (Dr Who, All Creatures Great and Small) and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen (oh, you know who he is).
The show goes out on the 21st March.
Heatham House photos
There are some photos up now on the Facebook page from the Heatham House gig on 26th Jan. Thanks to all involved! We had a great time, and considering we’d only rehearsed with Matt 3 times beforehand, it couldn’t have gone better.
We’ll be taking some time off doing shows for a while (unless we get asked to do any particularly exciting ones!) to concentrate on new tracks, and rehearsing with new members of course!
See you soon!
Heatham House with new guitarist!
We will be playing an ‘all ages’ show once again at Heatham House this Saturday (26th Jan), so if you’re a regular down there and saw us last time, we look forward to seeing you again. This will actually be a very different gig than usual for us because perhaps surprisingly, Matt Jarman (Dissident Sound Industry) will be playing guitar with us, after only a couple of rehearsals. We will even be playing some new material written with him in the last 2 weeks, so it’s gonna be pretty crazy. Check out the venue website for more info.
Matt Haynes Quits
That’s right, it’s official. Matt Haynes, known to millions all over the globe as “The People’s Guitar Hero”, “Norris”, or just plain old “McCartney” has decided to quit the band to persue other interests like smoking and playing Guitar Hero.
Matt was of course an original member from when the band formed back in late 2005, and will be missed by the many millions of fans he accrued over his 2 year service, who to be honest, probably thought he was actually Paul McCartney.
Matt’s glorious guitar can be heard, of course, all over the Live At The Buffalo Bar EP, and on the (s)hit single Boy Band Kind Of Way (still available to download on iTunes by the way!)
(photo: Annette Rickard)
Help For Heroes, Headley Court
OK, so the first bit of news worth posting on this new site is that on December 17th 2007, we performed at Headley Court, the armed forces rehabilitation centre near Epsom in Surrey, as part of their Christmas Dinner event for Help For Heroes, which is a group which raises funds for wounded servicemen.
Swimming and weight-training is the only way for injured service men and women to build up damaged muscle and regain the strength to use artificial limbs, so Help For Heroes aims to raise £5million to build a swimming pool and gym complex at Headley Court.
The group is supported by a number of celebrities, and is also heavily backed by publications like The Sun. James May from Top Gear is one such celebrity who, as you can see, was over the moon to bump into us. He actually said we were his favourite band!*
You can find out all about Help For Heroes, and how to offer donations to the cause at http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/ and www.thesun.co.uk/helpforheroes
*he didn’t.