Mercury Music Prize 2010

So, as I said I would, I've written some thoughts about this years Mercury Music Prize... before and after

But this time they're over at http://honourbeforeglory.com/blog.html

Link to the email subscribe will be updated shortly as well

Many thanks for reading this blog and hope you continue to read through Honour Before Glory internet portal

Moving On

As you've probably noticed, more and more of my ramblings have centred around my latest endeavors with / as Honour Before Glory, and as that project becomes more established, it seems silly to keep these musings as a seperate entity to that

In building the new website for Honour Before Glory, I've switched to a new blog that is embeded within the site, and hosted by those folk at tumblr. I'll be doing all my updates on there from now - Honour Before Glory related, as well as my production work and other random crap.

I'll put my annual thoughts on the Mercury Prize up sometime soon for starters and I'll try and update the email feed as well

Honour Before Glory on tumblr

Honour Before Glory website (new site coming soon)

Soundtrack to this post: Goldheart Assembly

Camera, Action

Bit of movement with Honour Before Glory. I've spent the last couple of months demo-ing furiously and me and Simon went into the studio last weekend to lay down drums for 7 new songs. That process is continuing this weekend. Minute by minute updates on twitter

Before we hit the studio, a few of us got together to take some shots of us in band like form with our great friend Carmymac. They're still in the airbrush phase (joke), but below are some 'out-takes'

Honour Before Glory play our only date of the summer at Harrogate Fringe Festival on Saturday 31st July. More information here

Soundtrack to this post: Dirty Projectors, Wild Nothing

A Beautiful Reminder

Apologies for the lack of updates recently, blame normal life and everything. Although, that's not quite true, focusing a lot of my attention recently has been Honour Before Glory. Furiously demo-ing new song and preparing the band for live, I've also been trying to finish one new recording to share with you. And here it is:

Honour Before Glory - A Beautiful Reminder



Recorded and mixed by whiskas at House Of Mook, Leeds - February / March 2010
Additional vocals by Fran McCrossan

http://honourbeforeglory.com

Soundtrack to this post: Woods, Picastro / Art: Erin Ward

Honour Before Glory - The Band

After months of planning and thinking, I'm finally in the throws of making Honour Before Glory a fully fledged band. I don't want to mislead, the crux of my music making will still be myself developing songs in a studio, but the ability to recreate these songs live was always an ambition of some sort.

Joining me wil be collaborators from the studio, like Simon Fogal (from I Like Trains), as well as some friends from previous lives. I'll post some updates on how we're going but initial steps are going very well.

For those expecting a return to touring and gigging akin to that in Forward, Russia, they would be very much mistaken. Because the band exists doesn't mean we'll be playing out all the time. It's for the special occasion, to be cherished when it occurs. We only have plans to play a handful of shows by the end of the year, if that

But I've waffled too much. We're playing our first gig in March - it's free - and here are the details:

FRIDAY 12th MARCH

Honour Before Glory + Fran Rodgers + Yanni Montoya

Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

7.30pm Doors / Free Entry

HONOUR BEFORE GLORY (¡Forward, Russia! / I Like Trains / Duels / Shut Your Eyes & You'll Burst Into Flames / Fran Rodgers / Normal Man and more)

Honour Before Glory is the solo project of whiskas (¡Forward, Russia! / Dance To The Radio), the extension and fulfillment of songs that were written throughout his time in Forward Russia and beyond. After numerous false starts, Autumn 2009 saw the songs finally brought to life in the studio with the help from numerous friends (Simon & Dave from I Like Trains, Jon Duels, Fran ex-Shut Your Eyes.. and Fran Rodgers), and then released unto the world.

Growing interest in the songs and the project sparked whiskas to strip the songs back to their orginal form, playing a number of solo shows with Sunset Rubdown, Damien Jurado, as well as a tour in Germany. With an expanding repertoire and sonic ambition, 2010 sees new friends and old join whiskas for what will be the fully blown technicolour live experience. Gigs will be a rare and special event, so catch it when you can

"a great, naturally tentative and atmospheric piece of work. It’s like Bernard Sumner without the baggage or New Order’s Other Two, but with flowers in their hair." - Steve Lamacq, Going Deaf For A Living

"[Honour Before Glory] vibrates and reverberates with fractured atmospherics digital and otherwise, at the core of which lies heartfelt, wracked songwriting that glows even as everything around it lifts into the stratosphere. M83 would be the closest reference point, but without the recently overbearing nostalgia angle or so much deference to MBVisms. Maybe Ride after a course of Spencer Krug records would be more accurate, so that you can't help feeling that were he from Toronto rather than Leeds Whiskas would have been corralled into Broken Social Scene long before now" -Sweeping The Nation

Download Broken Bottles, Empty Hearts and watch Lions solo in Germany here:
http://honourbeforeglory.com


FRAN RODGERS

Born in 1982 to an English father and a French mother, Fran Rodgers was raised with her twin sister in an old mining town in Nottinghamshire. Hours spent listening to her parents’ records inspired a love of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and, later, the likes of Nick Drake, Nick Cave and Jeff Buckley. Following a move to Leeds in 2000 Fran discovered a passion for singing and, self-taught on the guitar, she began to write. Performing alone or with a little help from good friends Bruce Renshaw, Lins Wilson and Jim & Jon Foulger, she transports the listener into the fragile world she paints of love, loss and hope. She's a folk chanteuse basically

http://www.franrodgers.co.uk


YANNI MONTOYA (¡Forward, Russia / You Slut / Bella Cohen)

The true Forward, Russia legacy may be more prevalent in this Nottingham outfit. Since Forward, Russia's hiatus, Katie Russia has moved to Nottingham, DJing at local clubs and creating mind blowing artistic creations those familar with the FR merch stands will not be suprised by. Teaming up with friends and local scenesters, including members of You Slut and Bella Cohen, Yanni Montoya played their first gig in January supporting Future Of The Left. Reports are, they were awesome.

http://yannimontoya.blogspot.com

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=283640130687
Last.FM event: http://www.last.fm/event/1396227+Honour+Before+Glory

Soundtrack to this post: Wild Beasts, PJ Harvery & John Parish

New Years' Revolutions

Happy New Year everybody. I hope you brought it in well. At the stroke of midnight, I was onstage at Leeds' Brudenell Social Club, emulating bagpipes with a melodica ripping out Auld Lang Syne, before kicking into a cover version of 'Party Hard' by Andrew WK (this time on the guitar). Fun times.

I'm looking forward to the new year, it should be a good one with lots of crazy and expected and unexpected things upcoming.

This is all good - looking back, 2 years ago this time felt like a mess, and I didn't know how things would pan out. A year ago, I'd managed to distract myself enough so as not to worry about it.

This year looks a fair bit healthier, though I'm still not exactly sure where the next bean is coming from. What to expect?

Honour Before Glory will get a bit more serious. There's a couple of 'solo' gigs upcoming while the band comes together, and we're gonna do our first gig in March. All the while recording lots of new songs, expect to hear some more before that gig, and hopefully we can release something more substantial before the end of the year

Other than that? Mook is being super at the minute, and we got some new gear over Chirstmas. So I/we continue to record bands as much as humanly possible and anyone who wants to get involved we're really quite open, so get in touch.. Hopefully, more of our exploits will be released over the next few months, starting with Sam Airey's EP - Seasons Change

Duels are holed up searching for direction on album III, and the Mi Mye album is done and should be released on Trash Aesthetics in the early part of the year. It sounds awesome. Jamie & Lee have done a fine job with it.

Other things are afoot as well, some not suitable for this here blog, but I'm sure they'll be revealed. Winky smiley face

And I can't ignore the Forward Russia question, which seems to have been primed a little towards the end of last year through articles like THIS. It seems a little impractical with Katie living in Nottingham. And we've all found other people to play with at the minute. For those of you who wish it, I'm afraid it just doesn't seem to be on the agenda at the minute (though I could be wrong?). And as ever, that doesn't mean it never will be

That was a little longer than I meant, but that, as they say, is the news - coming up next on Nyevsky Prospect!

Top 10 albums of the decade!

Bands for 2010!

x

Soundtrack to this post: Tilly & The Wall, The Unthanks

Friends Before Glory

I'm putting plans in motion to step up the Honour Before Glory activity in the coming months. Not actually stepping it up yet, as I'm still snowed under with a few bands I've recorded over the last month, but planning to.

First off, in preperation for returning to the studio over the festive period, I'm giving away Broken Bottles, Empty Hearts via download when you join the Honour Before Glory mailing list

FREE DOWNLOAD - Broken Bottles, Empty Hearts

Secondly, I'm putting the band together, which is exciting and daunting at the same time. The friends who I want to be involved are all busy people, so it an Honour Before Glory gig will be a rare occurence, but hopefully a special one.

We'll be playing our first gig in March, but to warm up, I'm hosting an evening at Nation Of Shopkeepers in Leeds. Fran Rodgers will be playing her own set, and we'll be joined by other people who contributed to the tracks I recorded, and playing some special versions of Honour Before Glory songs. Sam Airey will open up - I've been recording his EP recently and it's very special.

Details in full:

SUNDAY 24th JANUARY

A Nation Of Shopkeepers, Leeds

Honour Before Glory + Fran Rodgers + Sam Airey + Special Guests

Free Entry / early start : early finish

Last.FM event :: Facebook event

Soundtrack to this post: Leftfield, Dananananaykroyd, Department Of Eagles, Beach House

Lions (acoustic)

On the last day of the German tour in Leipzig, Sebastian Sometree filmed me playing a song backstage at Moritzbastei. It was inspired by the Blogotheque videos unsuprisingly

I like the idea of Lions of acoustic, as most of the songs that will come to pass, are zuped up versions of acoustic style songs - this is an acoustic version of a song that was never intended as such

After a few weeks sans Honour Before Glory, the next couple of weeks will hopefully start the get up in to some new songs, and a new live 'experience' - so stay tuned

honourbeforeglory.com

Soundtrack to this post: Julian Plenti, Tori Amos

100!

I've been meaning to blog all week, but have lacked sufficient time and inspiration to post something truely worthwhile. And lo - I come to muse and notice it's the 100th post!!

First - THE NEWS. Am very confused to be trying to operate in the real world, though that is currently manifesting itself in recording bands which is good. Some good stuff coming up when I get chance to finish it!

I'm enjoying being in the studio, but need to find time to work on some new Honour Before Glory stuff, and I keep missing some really good gigs. Tonight, I'm missing Dinosaur Pile-Up + Eureka Machines, La Roux (feat. Will Bowerman) and pAperchAse + Vessels. My appearences for FC Lokomotiv have also been severely reduced. Anwyay, I said enough of the self-indulgence

Secondly, this blog has really turned self-indulgent, so it seemed the right time to plug some NEW MUSIC I'm enjoying:

TWISTED

This is no bullshit "best band in Leeds" / "these guys are going to be huge" post, but this is a band who are more than worthy of your attention.

The story goes, I was sat in the bar of the Brudenell and was convinced I was listening to a big headline band soundcheck, only to realise later it was these boys opening up an alldayer. I knew the songs cos they're not precious about their digital media and have most of their recorded tracks up for download on their blog. Cool eh?

B1 (new single) - http://www.mediafire.com/?ygmqno5tlgj

Daydream EP - http://www.mediafire.com/?kxgmvwzhkzy

http://twistedleeds.blogspot.com/

TEGAN & SARA

I'm never quite sure about Tegan & Sara, but damn I do enjoy listening to it. Just the right mix of pop, shoegaze, riffs and tune-age. New album Sainthood 'blew up' in their native Canada I do believe

Sainthood on Spotify

Soundtrack to this post: Tegan & Sara

Next... Damien Jurado & More

Sorry, this blog isn't 'supposed' to turn into one completely about Honour Before Glory, but it's the centre of musical universe at the minute... well just about. I hit the studio next week with two new band, more of which soon

First thing for Honour Before Glory is a gig at Brudenell Social Club supporting the wonderful DAMIEN JURADO, mentioned previously on this blog here. The gig is, as I write tonight - Wed 4th Nov 2009. So maybe of more significance in the past tense

But this may be the last time I play solo in the style I've worked out that enabled me to go on tour with Sometree. Now that is complete, the next time I do something I can hopefully work on collaborations with people who've contributed to the recordings I've done. This will be better I'm pretty sure! And a step to 'putting the band together' - something that I'll be trying to do when I go into the studio to record the next set of songs, which I've already started demo-ing. For now though, I have to have one eye on the real world

Soundtrack to this post: Tegan & Sara

Honour Before Glory in Germany - Day 8/9

I'm back home in England now, trying to establish something resembling normality. The last few days in Germany were just as fun as everything else. It is nice to be home, but I will miss the Sometree guys!

I left the story in Regensbourg after zero sleep and a drive to Dortmund. I wasn't playing this night as it was a Visions Magazine Anniversary Party. This also meant Sometree were supporting the awesome Robocop Kraus, and lots of other things were happening, including Biffy Clyro play across time

So not much to tell, as I generally felt like a spare part for the initial part of the day before heading off to go watch Biffy, who'd flown in from Dublin for the show. It's always interesting to see bands you know well play to a foreign audeience, and the crowd went crazy for the Puzzle / Revolutions heavy set. Afterwards, I suprised the guys back stage, leading to a ridiculous backstory explanation - like, what the hell I was doing in Dortmund. Good to see them and their's though!

But unfortunately I managed to miss Sometree who played one of the best shows on the tour apparently. Had a relatively early night at our rock star filled hotel, and up for another long drive to Leipzig, fully refreshed after an awesome shower experience (you know, great temperature controls, really powerful)

With all the driving over the last few days, I'd finally got to working on some new bits and bobs for songs I've been playing acoustically to record 'fuller' versions in the studio. Was good, and hopefully I'll get in to the studio again by the end of the year

Anyway, Leipzig. Today we were joined by Tobias aka And The Golden Choir. With an early curfew, time was pushed, and we had to bail on watching Schalke v Leverkusen. The gig was great though, and everyone tore it up afterwards. 'Helium Man' made an appearence, people dissapeared, we danced to bad metal, and at somepoint we managed to make it back to the hotel

The next morning we bid a tearful, no, hungover, farewell. Sometree & Tobias headed off to Cologne, while I wandered wearily for some food before the trip to Berlin and home. Thanks guys! It was hella fun. We should do it again sometime

Soundtrack to this post: Sometree, And The Golden Choir, Throwing Muses

Honour Before Glory in Germany - Day 7

A severe lack of W-LAN has thrown the blog out of kilter, so this blog was written on Friday after the Vienna show. I'm posting it from Leipzig as the gig is about to start. Will probably fill in details of Dortmund & Leipzig when I'm home now...

So, as reported, after the Frankfurt gig we had to drive 9 hours to Vienna, and by the time we arrived, we were all a bit flaked out. We did manage to amuse ourselves by watching Ultravox's Vienna video - although Falco apparently has a more famous song about the City.

The main source of pre-gig entertainment came from the largest / busiest kebab shop / restaurant I have ever been to. From the street, a normal kebab shop, but stretching back and back (including a winter & summer garden) it must have seated about 200 people. And it was full!

I was expecting something amazing food-wise, and it was ok, but not amazing. The best thing, was the big screen showing Turkish soap opera. Something truly to marvel - especially the the mustaches.

The venue was quite a small one for the tour and Sometree really struggled to all fit on stage. No such problem for me of course, though I struggled with the fact that the venue was in a railway arch and the U-Bahn passed over every few minutes. In fact everything about the venue was a bit noisy

No time to party tonight, as we had to jump straight back in to the van and drive 4 hours to Regensbourg to enable us to get to Dortmund in good time today. Tired face

Honour Before Glory in Germany - Day 5/6

This report feels pretty hard to write, as we've just driven 9 hours to Vienna, which has been pretty hardcore. We have to drive back north after the show tonight as well, so it's a long day ahead still

Frankfurt was a mixed bag for us, upon arriving on Tuesday, we didn't really do anything good with our time. We did get some good grub though (although it was probably the most garlic I've ever tasted in a meal), and then found a "traditional" Irish Pub to watch Man Utd vs Barnsley. It all could've been so much better...

Had a walk around Frankfurt on Wednesday, and got to the venue nice an early. It was in the middle of an industrial area, and part of a strange media complex, that was more than a little bit weird, so it really took us a while to get into the feel of the night

The crowd, were great though and I had my best gig - although the amount of crap I talked would have made a Forward Russia crowd cringe. Sometree again rocked hard, and demolished their way through numerous bottles of red wine in the process. I'm the only beer drinker on the tour, so it's always slightly depressing at the end of the night as I can see how much I've consumed in exacting detail. At least when there are numerous empty wine bottles around 4/5 people are responsible, but with the empty beer bottles it's all down to me

Anyway, a question came up. Why do the English call Bayern Munich so? Munich is the English word for Munchen, but Bayern is the German work for Baveria. And yes, I pretty much have talked football all time on the tour - with brief respites to mention the Yankee's reach the world series, the Celtics beat the Cavs and the Wembley NFL game (a good week for Boston-born "5th member" of Sometree, Sean). Oh yeah, and the obligatory attempt to explain cricket.

Honour Before Glory in Germany - Day 4

It was a pretty relaxed journey to Stuttgart, and everything was done with a decent amount of time, checking into our hostel and loading the venue - the veritable maze of rooms.

While Sometree soundchecked I went for a walk around the city, which is supposed to be one of the richest in Germany - so lots of boutiques, and it's always cool to see a totally pedestrianised city centre.

The funniest thing for me though, was seeing a German Christmas Market, selling the kind of Bratwurst and Gleuwien found in Leeds & Manchester city centres every year. The Sometree guys found my amusement pretty funny - it's just that it was exactly the same as we have in Leeds. Surely there's no 'novelty' in having it in Germany?

The gig was a really good one tonight, the crowd came down early and were really kind to me and seemed to listen so I felt a bit more confident. Sometree got an amazing reaction tonight, even getting two encores and vinyl and CDs were being signed for quite a while after

This morning we had a lazy morning, with breakfast and internet check-up, before the light drive to Frankfurt. The gig that was supposed to be in Frieberg has been cancelled unfortunately, so we have a day off - but it will be valuable rest as we have to traverse the long journey into Austria on Thursday!

Soundtrack to this post: Grammatics, Throwing Muses

Honour Before Glory in Germany - Day 3

These blogs are running into each other a little bit - so I hope, as well as being at least mildly interesting, they also make sense! The timings are slightly off. I originally wrote this on the drive from Munich to Stuttgart, but now write it the day after Stuttgart (does that make sense?!). I will write of last night's adventures later today!

As reported, the day in Munich was nice and relaxed. We stayed at an apartment in part of the venue (the first time I've slept on bunkbeds for a few years!). The whole venue itself was split into 3 or 4 different sections, and operated in numerous different guises, including hosting some youth / social work, and a radio station. All in all a very cool place!

The gig was a bit more comfortable for me, and I managed to play Lions acoustically for the first time which was good, though I still feel slightly uncomfortable being onstage on my own! I think it will work better when the band exists as a 'bigger' entity (personnel wise). But I think I try and make excuses for this too much anyway!

Sometree rocked it again, while I descended into Augustiner Hell. Watching Sometree you again feel it's odd they never reached a bigger audience in the UK. Is a large part of it because they're German? Or does that geographical problem mean an inherit problem in terms of touring and being 'out' of England

In the course of the day, while talking about pubs, football and lyric writing in English, I introduced the guys to cockney rhyming slang - a whole new world for non-English speakers. The well oiled end to the evening, culminated in loading Danny Dyer clips on to You Tube...

Today I've been reading about Kristin Hersh's Strange Angel project - find out more here. I always enjoy her music and the recent 50 Foot Wave stuff was great, so it's interesting to read about another approach to making music (and seemingly unheralded)

And to Stuttgart... (except in real life I'm about to leave Stuttgart, but will write of last night later...)

Honour Before Glory in Germany - Day 1/2

After my nice holiday, I only had a few days to get ready for the Honour Before Glory tour supporting Sometree in Germany. The joke was I had to burn CDs to sell, do my washing and even finish a couple of new songs. This was a bit of exaggeration, but I was hoping to play Lions and a cover that I hadn't played previously.

The first gig was Friday night in Berlin, and to make things easier I flew in the night before - as with everything on this tour flying over on my own with just a guitar was a strange and new experience! Everything went fine though, even though I was especially worried about the safety of my guitar!

In Berlin, I stayed with Sebastian, the guitarist of Sometree, and we spent more of Thursday night and Friday catching up on all the goings on since they came over to support Forward Russia in early 2007.

While Sometree went off to do a radio session in the afternoon, I wandered to some familiar parts of Berlin, in search of Wurst & Kraut, before catching up with them at Lido later on.

There was the usual big city anticipation for the gig, with Sometree playing their home town, the capital city, at the big club with an early start for the early finish.

In true whiskas fashion, I felt suitably awkward onstage - I'm especially paranoid about my lack of German - I just feel rude. Still the gig went well, though it was probably the hardest for me to start with as it was so early and to such a big city crowd. I didn't brave Lions, but Mazzy Star's Fade Into You slipped in just perfectly

Sometree were awesome, playing the perfect Berlin set - so so good to hear the new songs, and worked extra well with help from old friend Sean on extra keys and guitar. No crazyness after the gig, as we had an 8am start the next day, with Munich our goal (a looooong drive), after Sometree stopped to at Restgeräusch studio to record an internet session.

During the session, I was total spare part and gourged myself entirely on chocolate and crisps while trying to keep up with the UK football scores. Like most Saturday in England really!

There is vague hope of using he time on this tour to write some more songs and work on how I'm going to record others. Maybe this will prove easier when there aren't football matches to get distracted by!!

It's been a beautiful day in Munich today, and we've mosty just chilled out in the sun while waiting to soundcheck. I did manage to watch Man Utd v Liverpool, so all is not lost. The gig tonight should be good, and then a short-ish drive to Stuttgart tomorrow, and hopefully the tour really gets going

Holiday (Celebrate)

I got back from holiday last Friday before heading straight out to see I Like Trains at The Cockpit. I'm keeping busy preparing for the upcoming Honour Before Glory tour of Germany with Sometree - I leave Tuesday morning, and ridiculously have songs to finish writing, lyrics to learn and EP's to burn / package.

The holiday was great, taking in Venice, Nice & Tuscany (dicacted by cheap flights) for one of the best & longest breaks I've ever had. Think it'll be a while before the next one.

I've had a fun few days since I've been back though, entailing the aforementioned I Like Trains gig, catching up with old friends Editors and a brief sojourn to In The City.

I'll try and add more bits and pieces once I'm on the road - as well as keeping the blog upto date with what's going on on the tour. But for now, I've got a plane to catch, and once I'm there, I've lots of travelling, so writing can wait for then!

Soundtrack to this post: Mazzy Star, Biffy Clyro, The Big Pink

Looking To The Future

It's always that irony when writing something like this blog, when you've lots of time to write, then there's nothing to write about, when there's no time for anything, there's lots to write about. And so here we are - I've finished my Masters degree (results end of the month), which also coincides with finishing the first Honour Before Glory recordings

But it's a brief respite - in a good way, as I'm dissapearing for a lot of October, but will be back with a vengeance afterwards.

HONOUR BEFORE GLORY

I have now finished the first Honour Before Glory recordings, and launched the compulsary Myspace page. You can listen below via the power of Soundcloud.

All the tracks were recorded by me at House Of Mook, and feature help from the talents of Simon Fogal, Jon Foulger, Francis McCrossan, Fran Rodgers and Dave Martin

After Germany, I'll be playing with Damien Jurado at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds - and then will be trying to do some more recording.

http://www.myspace.com/honourbeforeglory

HOUSE OF MOOK NEWS

After returning from Germany with Sometree in November, I'll be bedding myself down in House Of Mook and recording lots of bands. As ever, get in touch if you're interested here

The first fruits of Mook are being unveiled though - Just Handshakes (We're British) are releasing a split 7" single with my other faves Yonderboy. Listen and order the track through their respective Myspaces.

---

Other than that? Business as usual

Soundtrack to this post: Yonderboy, Papercuts

Academia

I've got a few things I want to write about on here - most prevalent being attending Bingley Music Live on Sunday to see Editors debut some new material (an interesting and enjoyable experience) and then there's tonight's Mercury Music Prize fandango

But unfortunately I'm consumed by my Masters degree which I've touted on here before, the hand in of which is just 16 days away

As written previously, this ties up with the current 'development' of HONOUR BEFORE GLORY - academically I'm supposedly discussing the relationship of artist & producer. I say supposedly because it's a hard thing to be subjective about.

So at the moment I'm concentrating on making the best record possible and that's going pretty well - it's quite exciting finally hearing the realisation of songs that I've been developing for many years - some ideas have been floating in my head since before ¡Forward, Russia!

Simon of Leeds football hero's FC Lokomotiv has provided the pounding rhythms and at the moment I'm spending my days fucking them up and adding squealing noise over the top. Hopefully some majestic melody's will be added by myself and other people who can sing.

The plan is - a version of these songs (I'm currently working on 3) will be finished for the end of the month. I'm hoping by the time I go to Germany I'll be happy for the songs to be released into the world. But we'll see... there's a lot to do in a short space of time

Soundtrack to this post: Editors / Quack Quack / Get Well Soon

My Leeds Festival 2009

This year I've felt a little too self absorbed to induldge myself in Leeds Festival properly. I spent the Friday & Sunday bed down in House Of Mook perfecting the mix for You Animals forthcoming opus, and setting up for recording some Honour Before Glory tracks on Monday

I did have a great day in attendance on the Saturday, though as usual it was the social aspect as much as the bands that made it the occasion it was.

I started the day watching The XX, who's album has quickly become a bit of a favourite of mine. It was an odd entity live, I wasn't expecting it to be that much more than it was, but I still thought it was a shame there wasn't more to it. Still, it's made me listen to the album today and I've enjoyed it all the more.

After The XX, I wandered around the site a little bit and checked out the BBC Introducing Stage, caught a little bit of ex-Loiner Anna Prior in Metronomy, before watching the Grammatics in the Festval Republic tent. And very good they were too

Later on, we camped out on the main stage to catch Vampire Weekend (who reminded me more than ever of Gracelands), bits of Bloc Party (very festival) and then Radiohead.

Radiohead was a bit of an odd one as not the set per se, but the whole set-up seemed very hard for a casual observer to 'break through' - and what I find odd, is why a band that was doing a sponsor-less tour in their own tents, was headlining such a 'corporate' festival?? With the 'arty' set up of video screens and lighting it was hard to connect from a distance, so I lost interest. I'm sure if I'd have been in the mood for an intense Radiohead set it would've been outstanding. I guess it was the festival equivalent of The Wire - not one for the casual observer. But that's what I go to the festival to be.

Two brief links / mentions:

1) To the festival volunteers who are actively getting involved. Great work if you can get it:

http://festvolunteers.blogspot.com/

2) Check out highlights of loads of bands on 'death of independent journalism' website the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/readingandleeds/2009/videos/

Keep an eye out for Faith No More covering the Eastenders theme

Many thanks to the kind people at Festival Republic though for letting me attend again. Hopefully next year I can do something worthwhile to attend

Soundtrack to this post: Wilco, Fever Ray