BORROWING NEEDLES...

Its our last week in the studio, Kai's flown away to Barcelona for a holiday in the sun, Kapil's off to Egypt tomorrow with his family, and these last 3 days are going to be a mad rush to finish everything we've started. About eight songs have been completed and we're all over the moon about how they sound. I don't really know what to write, the last month has been so manic and tiring....we've all blossomed into brilliant ping-pong players, had wonderful chats with Ray Davies (The Kinks... wrote Waterloo Sunset amongst other classics) about working late nights in recording studios, been living off genius cafe lattes from Ben (our engineer) and generally scraping through the routine of late nights and early starts. Last night saw the whole of Team Mystery doing its best female gospel singing around one microphone, we all sounded like old ladies at a sunday church service....its amazing what a pinch of reverb and some studio tomfoolery can do though, it actully sounds quite good.Kaps is just about to record a jug, its a bit of a wild card but its working as a percussive sound and resembles a tabla drum.
Anyway, here are some songs that we've been really getting into.One is a new track from Bjork called "Earth Intruders" and the others i won't reveal the identity of, but they are brilliant and very eagerly anticipated by the rest of the world.
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Hope you've all been very well, here's a home made video documenting what we've been up to.





Lots of love,
william.

POST ROCK TITANS TAKE THIER FINAL BOW

This friday, my oldest friends and indeed the band i have seen more times than any other, Doctor Filthwill be playing thier last. I highly advize you, in fact i URGE you to come see them off if you live in london.
Nobody ever seems to do them justice in describing how they sound, but imagine something somewhere inbetween Shellac, Queens of the stonage and Jesus lizard and your kind of close.
Lots of STARTS and STOPS and NOIZE and CHAOS and SHOUTING and FAKE BLOOD.

THIS FRIDAY 13th
AT THE PARADISE BY WAY OF KENSAL GREEN
CHAMBERLAIN RD (LADBROKE GROVE TUBE)
DOORS 8PM £5
DRESS BLACK N WHITE BURLESQUE

Come! This will be THE LAST TIME to see the best band you have never seen.
XBlaine

Moutarde a l'ancienne...

Its the end of our first week in the studio,its been a ball, a laugh, a lot of hard work, very tiring, completely amazing, slightly frustating, wonderfully smelling (our producer insists on burning joss sticks all over the studio "good for the soul..."he says) revealing and telling, sometimes people yelling, group discussions, lots of percussion, broken strings,things to sing...........you get the idea. I have emerged as the trailing light in our ping-pong games, having been thrashed by everyone from skinny Kapil to big chief Erol, Kai coming in as the number 1, the don, the maestro, the very reason i'm alive. I'm pretty good but lack the reflexes and the general nack of it. Anyone seen the new justin timberlake video, featuring Scarlett Johanson??? Many of our dinner times have been spent in deep discussion about this video (well its more of a short film) Is it over the top and meladramatic? (the fight scene where the music cuts out and a scuffling timberlake appears cursing and shaking his fists at naughty miss Scarlett, to the tragic ending where they crash their cars and one of them ends up dead) Or is it a really good effort from the biggest pop star in the world, trying to keep his ideas fresh and surprise his audience a bit.......i don't know, i'm not hugely into Master Justin, but his timbaland produced stuff is wicked (I'm sure you've all heard it...if not.) You decide.....

The last succession of hours has seen us get down a song which so far is untitled, but we all refer to as the "michael jackson"...its full of little hooks and backing vocal ideas, some of which sound quite haunting, its definately got a "thriller" kind of feel to it. We are taking the Quincey Jones approach to producing it aswell (he is the man behind "Off the wall" "Thriller" and "Bad"), dry drum sounds, the toms recorded separately, and lots of weird guitar noises, that sound more like synths than actual guitars. As for the lyrics, i won't give them away, lets just say its an extremely warped love song, the fact that wacko jacko is the inspiration for the music perhaps makes the whole thing even more ironic.

These are some things we've been listening to in the studio: coco rosie (thankyou to max shake for sending me thisX) this a song off their new album, really brilliant i reckon. A band called the Monochrome Set, a post-punk gem....... A chk chk chk song which is pretty interesting, and this..........a song called Ldn is a victim, it basically rips apart all the "cool" bands and musicians in london at the moment, its mildly amusing in places and a little dull in others but have a listen all the same, its one of those songs which is about the scene and for the scene, (whatever the scene is (assuming the musicians living/working in london can all be clustered together into a so called scene)).


And finally, allow me to recommend the above. Its a whole grain mustard,made in france, and its called "Maille". There are pots and pots of the stuff all around the studio, and heres why: Its made from the finest of ingredients (spirit vinegar, mustard seed and white wine) and when applied to pretty much anything you can think of, magic happens. Its no musical wonder tool or maker of miracles, it just tastes fucking amazing. Buy a pot, slap it onto cheese and toast...watch it transform a common snack into a royal delicacy. Sorry for the randomness but it needed a mention, me and blaine have been putting it on everything, its just really nice.







I hope you're all extremely well and happy, please try the mustard, and let us know how you are all keeping,
love william.X

VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

UNTIL we put the finishing touches to Erol's second venture into fly on the wall film making, Id like to point you in the direction of a handfull of videos which weve been lapping up. Not so say weve been lounging about wasting precious recording time on cheap Craic. That would be a gross understatement. After all everybody knows the overwhelming cultural significance of a healthy youtube education.

FOALS HUMMER VIDEO
Foals comprises of 5 people, two of which, jack and yannis, used to play in the worlds greatest math rock trio, The edmund Fitzgerald. I saw them about 3 times with youth movie soundtrack strategies and was never anything but speechless by the time they staggered off stage. Though Foals were born out the Ed Fitz's dying embers, they have a quite different adgenda. The rythyms are beeline, the guitars sound like a ping pong competition and the vocals are delivered cantankerously. Check it.


XTC: STATUE OF LIBERTY ON THE OLD GREY WISTLE TEST 1978
Alongside the Attractions and Devo, XTC are one of my favourite bands of the new wave era. Statue of liberty, if you read the lyrics is litteraly about a love affair with the green-coloured lady with the torch in her hand. But I think Andy Partridge could have written a top ten about an overweight giraffe had he wished. I love the way he plays with words as they leave his mouth. funny looking chap too.


THE KLF: ITS GRIM UP NORTH
Also known as the Timelords or the guys who set fire to a million quid or as authors of 'The Manual (or how to how have a number one the easy way)', the KLf ruled the late 80s and Early 90s with thier semi-sarcastic art terrorism. Their most notorious performance was at the February 1992 Brit Awards, where they fired machine gun blanks into the audience and dumped a dead sheep at the aftershow party. This performance announced The KLF's departure from the music business, and in May 1992 the duo deleted their entire back catalogue. Check out the video for 'its grim up north'. They namecheck Featherstone! They namecheck Wigan!
Erol has been bangin' on about these guys for ages. And not without reason. check.


BAND OF HORSES LIVE ON LETTERMAN:
When did band of horses get so fucking big? Letterman? Thats big right? Christ. Im dreading the day i see a little girl wearing a band of horses t shirt at a snow patrol gig. In fact i dread the idea of a snow patrol gig full stop.
However I dont mind that these guys are soft on the ear because Funeral is a beautiful, beautiful song, and the vocals are neither whimsical nor self induldgent. I highly recomend thier album too, Everything all the time. Each of the ten songs is perfect in its own little way.
Watch how Ben repeatedley struggles to hold back his grin as he contemplates performing infront of 4.4 million people.
No pressure mate.


Finally, here is a clip which has, to be fair, done its rounds on the net. But nothing takes away from the The sound that comes out of this kids mouth as he unwraps his n64 (AKA the 2nd best games console of all time after the NES).
It just makes you want to say 'Weve ALL been there kid, you go ahead and do your thing"
But will someone please shoot his little sister?


X BLAINE

In the beginning.

Soooo....we've been in the studio for about 48hours now, i don't quite know where we are, somewhere in the depths of leafy north London, the old hunting ground of the Kinks apparently. We've been rapidly unpacking all our gear, changing guitar strings, drum skins, running around the place, playing killer games of ping pong, making sure everything sounds good through the mixing desk and generally treading the fine line between mischief and music making. We've got the foundations for our first song in place too.....its just drums and bass right now, but we're about to do the vocals and duran-stlye keyboard parts so i'll make a little dictaphone sample of it in a couple of hours and stick it up on the blog so you can hear it. We also found a bit of time to make a short film for everyone to see, Erol directs it, and we all play the lead roles, with Kai making a topless cameo appearence in it.Let us know what you think, its the first part in a conceptual series that we'll be executing in the coming weeks, involving food, indoor sports and whatever else we can get our hands on.......

[A little message to everyone in america who wants to come to our gigs:
We are hassling our managers and booking agents to try and sort out some under 21's shows, its proving quite tricky but we're doing our best to organise it. Another idea we had, would be to play an acoustic show in every town that we visit,i.e. doing matinee gigs in independant record stores.Send us a message if you have any brain waves...but either way,if we can't do any under21's gigs there is always the backdoor, and we can do commando style missions to sneak people in and avoid the bouncers.
hope your well, lots of love.
william.X