STICKS AND STONES IS BACK

For those of you who don't know, I do poetry. Me and my mate Adam started a night called Sticks and Stones about 4 years ago at Strawberry Fields Bar on Woodhouse Lane, Leeds. We have one of the UKs top spoken words artists as a guest, and open mic too. Strawbs burnt down early this year so we've been away for 6 months but now we're back! With a Belter! Boom! Bang! Whoosh! Kapowee! DUBIOUS ONOMATOPOEIA!

Below is the e-flyer for the first one of the season. John Berkavitch is the guest. He is a vision of the near future set in 1989. He was the 2007 Glastonbury Slam Champion, the 2007 UK Slam Champion, has performed on radio 1, radio 4, done two national tours, can breathe under water, and hold himself out from a lamppost (or similar), parallel to the ground, thanks to his freakishly overdeveloped latissimus dorsi. Check it out:

SOLVING MYSTERIES, SETTING TRENDS

The mystery of who's been smashing my car up has been solved by deduction. Whilst Ewan was in Hong Kong, my rear windscreen wiper got pulled off, so it must have been Slurpy. We only had two votes on the matter, both saying Slurpy did it, so it's official, you can judge a book by it's vandalizing, sneering, disgusting, bearded cover. Of course, there is the possibility it was someone other than Slurpy or Ewan, somebody else with a massive vendetta against me, like the feminist I held the door open for at the co-op, or that vegetarian guy I offered a block of horse liver to before I knew he was vegetarian, or that racist guy who I was telling that race was not a biological reality, only a social construct, but I'm reaping my revenge on Slurpy regardless. I made him a cup of tea with no sugar in, as I promised two blogs ago, and I've also realised he probably won't look at his passport again until he next travels, so I've done this (I had to photoshop his details out for security reasons, obviously):



Me, Slurps, Ewan and Gaz are going Amsterdam next month but I reckon after Slurps flashes his passport it might just be me, Ewan and Gaz.

We've finished shooting the video for our next single now. Here's a couple of pictures from while we were shooting:



Now I'm not normally a trendsetter but I reckon face scars are gonna be big this season. It's a strong look:

SPINNING PLATES TAB

Me and Krish have been busy this weekend sorting out this guitar tab for Spinning Plates. We're gonna tab out other Middleman songs over the coming months and I'll make them available on here. If you like, you can request a Middleman song and we'll tab it out so you can play it. Enjoy:

INNOCENT UNTIL VOTED GUILTY

Alright, this is getting ridiculous, enough’s enough, it’s time to get to the bottom of this thing. At Kendal Calling, my windscreen got smashed, and the guy who came and fixed it said it was definitely from close contact, a blunt object, that is, deliberate. Then, two weeks later, parked on my street, my tyres got slashed, proper slashed. Now, this weekend, my wing mirror has been smashed off my car, on the pavement side, so it can’t have just been a car driving past. Now the only people who were at all crime scenes were my two housemates, Slurpy, and Ewan. Ewan was on his way to Hong Kong by the time I discovered the wing mirror but I hadn’t driven since he’d left so it could be a cleverly timed attack designed to give him an alibi. But I’m not fooled by such deviousness. Because I’m a fan of democratic justice, I’ve decided to settle who did it by public vote. So, have a look at this wanted picture of the two suspects, and leave a comment as to who you reckon did it:

If I get no comments, I’m gonna toss a coin, heads means Slurps did it, tails means Ewan’s guilty. Then, I’m gonna punish the culprit. If it’s Slurps I’ll make his tea with no sugar even though I know he wants sugar. If it’s Ewan I’ll take match of the day off the sky planner. That’ll learn ‘em!

Oh, and there isn't really an award for their capture as the poster suggests, but if you see either of them, give them a menacing fist shake. I'd appreciate it.

SMASHING LEEDS AND READING

We drove down after writing a new song and got to Reading at 4:30am, camped just behind our stage. Next day Ewan goes out flyering before our gig, puts the flyers in a bin and just makes it rain instead. We smashed the packed tent:

An all nighter of debauchery later and even the flocks of geese overhead start sounding like a clan of asthmatic joggers. I’ve got a gig poetrying at midday and Slurpy’s passed out in the middle of the path in guest camping. I try to move him and cover him up so he won’t get too sunburnt but the t-shirt over his face just makes him look dead. I nearly throw up with the effort of the gig, get back to Slurps and find out a fire engine came along, was stopped in its tracks by slumbering Slurps, couldn’t wake him up and the firemen had to get out and move him. We might change our name to Woken Up By Firemen.

We hallucinate our way up to Leeds and stand in front of Radiohead. Some girl from Middlesborough tells me Princess Beatrice just touched her gash (her words) then hitches her skirt up, squats in front of me and pisses. The gig the next day is wicked and the crowd are well up for it:

We get interrupted mid-interview by somebody asking if we can play the BBC Introducing stage for Alan Raw in 15 minutes as somebody’s dropped out. We do it, even more fun-ly than the first gig and the crowd are wicked:

Then back on the debauchery. Lee takes his trousers down in an interview and falls asleep and Slurpy makes some ironic comment about Krish being the token. Basically we’re on a charm offensive, or an offensive, anyway.

Later on I’m stood next to the Jamaican Bob Sleigh team and there’s a helicopter going over Jamie T’s shoulder. Now whatever you say about Mr T. (that’s the musician not the guy who works for Snickers) he does a cracking job of looking like 1995. The snickers guy’s more of an ‘80s man.

After Faith No More Jess Hatches a plan to kneel down behind Gaz while I push him over. I refuse. She insists. I refuse again. She insists harder and given she’s Gaz’s girlfriend I decide it’s ok, but I don’t want to do the pushing cause I still feel bad, so I say I’ll be the inanimate object he’s pushed over, and she can push, thus alleviating my guilt. I go and kneel down behind Gaz and Jess does nothing. Gaz stumbles over me backwards, falls really heavily and can’t get up, saying he heard a crack or something. I feel terrible. Jess asks what I was doing. I ask why she wasn’t pushing. She says I got the wrong man, she was saying Slurpy all along as it was his birthday, not Gaz, and Slurpy’s still oblivious to the whole thing. I feel bad but later on, when Gaz gets stranded in the mud on one welly, it doesn’t stop me laughing long and hard enough to warm my belly with lactic acid.

Some geezer stops me to ask if I can feel his toes. It’s not a request, just an enquiry as to whether I’m also aware of the sensation in his lower phalanges. Then we’re sledging down a mud-hill after dancing to a tree-house DJ whose main aim seemed to be to make us really aware that he was DJing by letting one track completely finish and allowing a couple of seconds of silence before playing the next one. Here's some video footage from before we started forgetting to film:

KRISH WARHOL IN IRELAND

We had our first international tour in May; a one day tour of Ireland. I meant to record it all but got sidetracked by laughter and alcohol. I did manage to get a bit of us judging Ireland's Got Talent on film though, in the centre of Dublin. Check out the jealousy in our faces

The flight went pretty smoothly apart from when Krish cried his eyes out the entire flight. Nobody even got fondled too badly by the security guys. Doesn't always go so uneventfully though; here’s my top 5 airport moments:

5: Arriving for a flight in Nice 4 hours early and not being able to find my flight on the departures board, only to discover I’d missed it by a day.

4: Being an Eastern immigrant and finding myself stranded in JFK airport and having to take up temporary residence there. No wait, that was Tom Hanks and it was rubbish. I did once save a bunch of Americans from deadly snakes by shooting a hole in the side of the plane and letting the pervy-tongued slithery death-ropes be sucked out.

3: New Year’s Day (my birthday) 2008. Having passed out in the airport toilet, I was woken up by Ewan ringing me to make sure I hadn’t fallen asleep and missed my flight. I had to sprint to the plane and then filled a sick bag before getting to my seat.

2: 1998ish, flying back from a family holiday in Spain the plane was delayed 12 hours. After about 10 and a half I woke up from a 20 minute snooze to see my dad, stood on a table with a big mob around him, saying they should start killing members of staff every 20 minutes until they made a plane appear for us, and that way there’d be one ready in 40 minutes. The plane came about an hour later and we got free tea and coffee in the mean time. Incidentally, he recommended a similar technique; shooting whoever was in last place every 5 minutes, to liven up the marathon.

1: Falling asleep in an emptyish food hall in Dublin airport and waking up in a jam-packed food hall, laying flat on my back, in lightweight tracky b’s, fully tumescent. This young couple next to me were hypnotised. Well funny.

Now, we all know Krish was a big deal in modelling until he was dropped for his lack of versatility (we all know his ‘grinzilla’ look), but I never realized how many other bands he’d been in until I uncovered this Andy Warholesque artwork comprised of photos of his old bands. It’s like finding out your girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend was Hollywood. Check it out:

FESTIVAL HAZE

Style theft and sexual conduits.

Listen right, Mike Skinner stole my style, last weekend, at Kendal Calling Festival. We were on just before Goldie Looking Chain and then The Streets, the sound was amazing and we proper smashed it, about 1,000 people all going nuts. Anyway, after the first song a couple of girls at the front requested some nudity, telling me to show them some ankle and that. I told them why didn’t they? And if 10 girls did, I would too. One girl promptly quit her vestments and hurled her bra on stage. She balanced her ample bozom on the security barriers like a pair of angry, googly, staring eyes. Two hours later, same day, same stage, a few songs into his set, Skinner goes ‘let’s see if we can get 10 girls to take their clothes off. One did. He goes ‘right, 9 more and my keys player’ll strip too.’ Chicken! Didn’t even offer to sacrifice himself as bait. He got 5 or 6 pairs of eyes, Beat me! That’s not the point though, point is, this style theft is a scandle on a par with Tom from Kasabian copying Berko’s red leather stage jacket. Yeah, that. Here’s a picture of the girl:



And here's one of Slurpy signing some girl. Told you he was a rock star, forget about Cliff Richard, he's like flippin Engelbert Humpedink:



So this weekend we played at Moor Festival. The Saturday night, this girl starts chatting to me, asks if we’re gonna party after Wild Beasts finish. I’m like, ‘Yeah we’re all going Silent Disco.’ She goes, ‘So we’re gonna party then.’ I say ‘Yeah, we’re all going Silent Disco in a minute, you coming?’ After the fifth time she asks whether we’re gonna party I’m thinking she’s a bit slow, but then I realise I’m the idiot when she asks if I’m coming to party, just me, her and her mate, and she points to some geezer behind her eyeing me up. Turned out they wanted me as a sexual sluice and I didn’t really fancy it. Not my bag being a carnal conduit, I’m no erotic aqueduct, no genital siphon! For the visual learners who still aren’t getting what they were angling for, here’s a diagram I just did on my laptop:



For those of you who are kinaesthetic learners, I’m working on a danceplanatory version but unless you meet me in person it’ll be of no benefit to you.