Who the hell thought up ‘the noughites’?

A few months ago, my friend Jacob drove us to a show I was playing in Southampton. We got to the place way early, so we went to the zine fair that was happening in town where our friend Elliott was running a stool.

After flicking through a zine with a particularly cool cover, I handed over £1.50 and walked away with it. Maybe I bought it because it was co-written by Richard Phoenix, ex-drummer of The Steal and Captain Everything - who are pretty much two of the best bands ever to come from the surrounding areas of the M25 - but probably just because the feature about the fears and loathing of driving tests looked pretty good.

What made me really like it was the introductory editors’ note, which made me realise not all non-music related/how-to zines aren’t lame propaganda trying to get me to sympathise with the authors’ views.

It was about how he’d met someone on a tight-legged long bargain-coach journey who became one of his best friends. Of all places; a cold night-bus that he was alone on was the place that two people became what are affectively life-friends.

Just before Christmas this year, I was letting off steam in a friend’s toilet in Hackney after an inebriated night out when I read a column in a crumpled up issue of one of the first Last Hours. It was written by Itch King Blues and was about when he and a mate befriended a handful of strangers in a taxi from the midlands back to London after the trains weren’t running due to the July bombings a few years back.

Both reads made me think that it’s in the most unsuspecting places that you’ll meet the most amazing people.

Whether it’s a bus or a train, a taxi or a plane, you can have the most life-affirming or memorable conversations you’ll ever have.

I remember sitting on a plane to America with my mum and we were sitting next to a back-up singer of INXS in economy of a budget airline. I wasn’t too sure the nice young, blonde, wide-eyed and big-breasted lady was telling the truth, but she sure did have some awesome stories from being in the band.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I’ll be sure to not shake off the next person who wants a chat in what for a lot of people is a keep-to-yourself-and-avoid-eye-contact zone. It could lead to something pretty good.

In a bit.

Christmas boozey dü - you punk, you bowl.

Punk ‘n’ Bowl is what it says on the fucken tin. You punk. You bowl.

P’n’B is a pretty weird little event which has been happening every couple or so months since January in the basement bowling lanes of the larr-dee-darghh Tavistock Hotel near Euston. Pretty, pretty, pretttyyyy swank!

I only think it’s ‘pretty weird’ because it seems too good to be true: awesome bands (from the UK/USA/Germany/wherever!) kill it all day, and on top of that, there’s a bar which sells fucked up German beer/nachos and you can bowl.

You can bowl. You can watch rad bands. You can bowl. You can fucking bowl. Alternating between the two attractions.

If you really tried, you could hop to and fro on each foot – to, BOWL, fro, FUCKING AWESOME MEGA-BAND, to again, BOWL... and so forth ‘til your nuts drop off.



But the really fucked up thing about Punk ‘n’ Bowl? It’s donations. £3 and everyone’s happy. £3!

I’m genuinely finding it pretty frustrating trying to write down my thoughts on Greg/Cara’s social-network-punk baby, because I get too excited to whenever I think about it. Which makes this a bit of a pointless exercise. Anyway…

So why is this relevant today? PUNK ‘N’ BOWL III is happening on 20th December.

The Gateway District, Bangers, The Shitty Limits, Regimes, The Arteries, Men, Cold Ones and Brothers are playing. So am I.

Roo from Bangers said to me the other day that he was as excited about P’n’B as he was about Fest. I replied that I thought that was stupid. Unless I die anytime soon, I’m starting to see his point…

Oh and here's the f-book open event - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=194052508047&ref=nf

In a bit.

Stop talking rot.

A few days ago I played a show at the Southampton Homestead, a big Victorian detached house. There’s a large conservatory in the back where acoustic shows happen a bunch of times a year. One of the charming current residents Harry “if you were so lucky” Mega Games Two described it pretty accurately as ‘a place which has all the benefits of a squat but you have to pay rent’.

That place is a blast. I’ve only stayed round a couple times and they’ve always been too much fun. This night was no different; Apologies, I Have None, Sam Russo and Mega Games Two absolutely killed it and it was one of those nights that make your insides sink when you’re head’s numb at class/work.

I drank a lot of K and pear cider, took some prescribed muscle relaxation pills and got an ‘A,IHN’ tattoo by Russo and a needle at 4 am when I was in my boxers reading the editorials of a porn mag sitting next to a sleeping person. Wow that was a mouthful.

Needless to say, A,IHN’s Dan “where are your sleeves?” Bond sums up the Homestead better than I could here.

Last night I got a Facebook message from a guy who helped out my old band a fair bit, despite not liking our band all that much; I’m sure that doesn’t make too much sense and that it sounds like he could have wanted something in return (cars, maisonettes, a song written about him?), but that’s just how rot rolls.
He said in the message that he heard that ‘my acoustic shit’ is pretty good.

I found it funny. I won’t be asking him for any help and won’t accept any if he offers, because I don't write songs to ask people to help me to push them.
That’s not the reason why I’m playing songs in my friends’ conservatories. That's why I'm having fun doing Cynics.
I would much prefer to keep things one-dimensional.

It’s simply more simple. Simple = fun. Simple. Simple is better. Now who’s playing next, I want to get drunk.

In a bit.

Norfolk Square

I’ve spent the whole of today inside doing absolutely nothing but listen to records today. So earlier tonight I went for a short walk and sat outside on the steps in the park opposite the house I have a room in. I just watched.

A few homeless people were there with a dog, sitting down drinking the same cider I do and chatting to eachother.
A guy with a load of plastic bags walked past with a dog who watched his every move and didn’t stray more than 5 metres away, and when he noticed the group of other people they started having a conversation across the small park, asking whether they recognised him and saying how he recognised them from ‘around town’.

It made me think just how confined we are to our own lives. All I’ve thought about today is what is directly around my life, and watching that made me feel so marginalised. But there are so many communities in this town, and every other in the world. Companies of business men and communities of homeless people. And all the circles inbetween that connect them.

Yeah, I guess everyone thinks that at one time or another and that’s just a simple fact just like anything else. But I feel that it’s something I should be aware of every second of every day.

Defiance, Ohio say exactly what I’m thinking right now, so I’m gonna go listen to that song.

In a bit.

Any of you ladies seen my kinder egg?

I realised today how much I let all you guys down with that last blog. Yeah, all two of you messageboard squares. You fatheads.

I’m not a sissy motherfucker as I’ve previously suggested; I don’t talk about how it’s important to stay friends with people and keep everyone in good company.
Fuck. No. I’m obnoxious and loud. Nonchalant and proud.

I shotgun beers with my teeth. I launch pizza down my neck.
I’m a better, more awkward, wasted Larry David. I’m a Mr. Bean that can speak English.

I’m a renegade. A fucking maverick.

And yet… I fall short of everything I wish I was.

I’ve always thought it’s weird when a guy goes into a public toilet and chooses the trap instead of the urinal that’s open and free to use. Is it ‘cos he doesn’t want to give any of the other guys at the urinals a chance to take a sneaky peek at his member? Or maybe ‘cos he’s really bad at aim? I don’t even know.
But why go to the trap when there you have to clean up after yourself and have the extra effort of opening/closing the door behind you. Effort, man. It stinks.

Once, when I was at school, I was taking my daily dump at a toilet I knew was safe from kids coming in and throwing wet-balls of loo roll over the top of the door. A guy started knocking at the door. I politely told him to go fuck himself.
Unfortunately for me, the lock on that particular door was a bit shaky. So when he kicked into it a couple times, it opened for him pretty nicely.
The door swung open and I tried my best effort to open my hand and put it over my package to create a screen over what dignity I had left.

Next thing I knew, everyone had heard that a guy had walked on in me bashing one out in the toilets. Having a quiet one with Madame Palm and her five sisters. Great, just great.
I mean, if the guy had caught me fair and square shaking off the cardinal, then that’s cool, I would understand. Fuck, I would even appreciate it.
But somewhere out there, there’s a pretty girl who thinks that some weirdo at her school once had a wank during school hours. Smooth.

Listen to The Underground Railroad To Candyland. Your life will change gear.

No photos today. The balls-out face of this post does not warrant such colour.

In a bit.

Taking me back to where I belong.

I’ve always found myself bad at keeping in contact with people that I’ve met away from where I'm living. Anyone in a band or anyone who’s travelled will appreciate that you can meet the best people ever and have one of the best times, only to move on the next day and eventually forget about them.
I’ve decided to try my hardest to stop that happening.

I had one of the most awesome nights ever during the Fest last week with a bunch of really nice dudes, drinking whiskey and rolling around the Holiday Inn until sunlight. As soon as I got home, I found some of their e-mail address and sent no more than a ‘hi, let’s stay in touch’ note. They replied and that’s it – we’re keeping in contact. Period.

The same applies to friends from home who have all gone to study/work around the country. Most weeks I’ll them a call, just to say ‘what’s up’. It’s a little bit weird sometimes and it’s kinda awkward most of the time at the initial greeting when you’re expect a ‘stop stalking me Giles, you freak’, but in the long-term it’s better than just getting on with yourself.



So Laurelin, Sean, Ben and the Comadre dudes, see you soon.

Florida, being unintentionally shown-up

I haven’t been doing too well keeping up with my initial plan to write a post a day for this website, really.
Heck, my life isn’t so interesting that I could write some crazy story every day about how wasted I got and how many girls have slept in my bed since I’ve lived in Brighton, but I’m not boring. I don't think.

I spend a lot of time out of my room hanging out in basements talking to couch surfers from around Europe and learning the legislation on squatter’s rights. Or going out of town to shows and speaking to rad people.

This weekend just gone I went to The Fest in GNV, FLA with almost everyone I know. It was the best time ever.
AIHN, Bangers, Above Them, The Arteries and Calvinball all fucking killed it. The roof was even falling apart when Bangers/C-ball played.
I’m sure snippets of stories will come out on this blog sooner or later.



I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m going to do with this music. After caring too much about my old band and getting so exhausted, frustrated and resilient, I’ve got no inhibitions.
Every band says they’re “in it for the fun.” This is the first time I've meant it.
Fuck, I don’t even care if I play any shows. I’ll go to friends’ shows and get drunk there. I’ll have a much better time anyway.

Funny I think about this now: I just got a link to a write-up of when I opened for Spoonboy a couple of months ago which talks about how I 'unintentionally' got shown up by a 16-year-old. Ex-girlfriends rule., Some Sort Of Threat rules harder.

I’m gonna spend the rest of my week at dance parties.



In a bit.

Photos from the past month.

'Negi' Sam Russo reports back to his ball 'n' chain.


Havin' one out on Jugs' couch in Norwich.


£3 burritos at Los Taquito's


Three of my pals.


Practice space.


Fathead.


Yo sucker, got a big mouth.


Jesu.

Through being cool.

Nick Hornby considered in his book ‘High Fidelty’ whether people were sad because they listen to pop music, or whether people listen to pop music because they’re sad.

So, are people are alienated and outcasted from the majority because they listen to punk rock, or whether they listen to punk rock because they are alienated and outcasted?
There’s something about that romanticised question that makes me not want to answer it.

I went to a university dudes' house party this weekend just gone that made me feel just like that.

I fell asleep on the stairs and got kicked out before my friend was also shown the door for shouting at a girl who was wearing a dead fox around her neck. It was fashionable… or something.

It wasn’t too unlike this:



Along with an increased intake of K, I’m starting to dislike people more and more. Correlation between the two? Nah…



That's Tommy and El Morgan. Tommy employs me to write for his zine. El is a drugs and alcohol counsellor. She says K is bad. Whoo...!

In a bit.

GNV, FLA

My top five records that I want to listen to right now at this present moment after I’ve pretty much finished all my chores for today and while the sun is blaring through the parts of my window I can see.

1. Apologies, I Have None – ‘Two Sticks, Six (soon to be multiple) Strings’
“It doesn’t matter what you’ve got, because we’re all in this together”

2. Calvinball – ‘Live Fast, Go To Bed Early’
“As the train pulls away I can almost hear you say ‘goodbye, farewell and amen’”

3. Above Them – ‘Blueprint For A Better Time’
“Stay what you started, become what you’ve wanted”

4. The Arteries – ‘Waffle Soul and Beer’/’Blood Sweat and Beers’
“Reap back what they sow”

5. Bangers - everything
“You’re better than most, she said, as I put my shirt back on”

All my favourite bands are my friends.

One thing they’ve all got in common? Later this month I’m going to Gainesville for a weekend with almost everyone I know.

On a down note, I got a text from Chas yesterday saying that Lightyear are playing a secret show in Derby tonight. However much I would love to go, I refuse to comply with the train fare.

In a bit.

Trains, buses and cool dudes.

I have a love/hate relationship with trains and buses. They can be exhilaratingly rad one time, then cock crunchingly boring the next.
The last trains home to where I grew up were usually fun – drunk posh married couples, angry people, happy people, sleeping people. And there wasn’t enough room to lift a finger. For fourty minutes twice a weekend, all those things culminated into a rarely bad time.
Namely, it was always fun meeting people from Berkhamsted and letting them know that my mum wrote a main column in their local paper about her kids.

“Yeah, I was the one who went streaking down the High Street on Harry Potter launch night/fell asleep on a train and woke up in Northampton/told my school careers advisor I wanted to study Journalism to write for a porn magazine”.



Anyway, so buses. Fucking buses.
Twice in the last week, TWICE, two strangers have met in the two seats in front of me, flirted unashamedly and ended up eating eachothers’ faces off by the end of the journey. Man, romance rules.
I should get buses more often.

Last week I went to a ‘free party in the woods’ up by the Univeristy of Sussex campus with some friends who were there to make some dollar by selling laughing gas.
I guessed there would be the rad-dudes-wanting-to-fuck-a-fresher-and-get-mashed-up-and-dance-then-punch-somebody vibe, but I still went with an open mind.

It was shit. It took me back to sitting on a metal fold up chair at youth centres around Buckinghamshire at school peoples’ discos having nobody to dance with, feeling twitchy with a tight spine I couldn’t shake off.
Maybe if I was on pills then I might have enjoyed it. MIGHT have. But I don’t do pills. Or have a flowing supply of glowsticks. Or wear a dumb hat.
That last one may or may not be true, but the point is this: the party was full of lame douches whose only aim of the night was to go back to their room and type in their Facebook status how ‘mental last nite waz’.

I ended up going back to my friend’s flat and talking shit/playing songs until sunlight.
That’s what I like.

In a bit.

Pinks and punks.

I make a tit out of myself way more than anyone should be even allowed to, which is most likely the reason why I won the prize for ‘Most Likely To Sell the Big Issue’ in my end-of-school yearbook.
To be honest I wasn’t too bothered about it. I mean, a dude in The King Blues used to sell it right? Now, he’s on the front cover of it in impeccable Inspector Morse fashion.



Today I cocked up at the laundrette like a massive erect pink. To save my embarrassment and potential loss of what dignity I have left to lose, I’ll write this: it’s true what they say about mixing colours in a ‘warm wash’, and nobody likes it when a student type asks them for 2p that he lacks in washing funds.

Needless to say, I can now wear underwear which doesn’t smell like Big Foot’s dick.



'Thou shalt not commit laundry.' I need to get my priorities straight huh, Milo.

I still always feel a bit hollow when I think about the show I went to see in a boxing club on Watford high street on my 15th birthday: Captain Everything!, Gallows, Latterman, Tellison.



I wrote a song yesterday about trains and buses and 2006-esque Watford punk rock.
The day I stop getting that shining feeling when I play a song is the day that my bed-sit falls into the sea. Or maybe I’ll just quit. Fucking up is pretty easy anyway.

In a bit.

Ignorance and needing more underwear.

I started writing posts for this blog space with the aim of writing one article a day about things that I’ve been thinking about too much to think about anymore and stuff that I’ve written songs about under the moniker ‘cynics’. Breathe in…!
I figured that if I was going to start writing a blog, it was always going to trail off at some point. So to put in the maximum point on the gauge would be to write once a day.

For the most part, I haven’t carried out this goal. I’m a busy dude who hangs out with everyone worth hanging out.
There’s a self-righteously ignorant excuse fit for me. And Kieran (hi Kieran, reader of this).


This weekend I went to Sheffield to party, puke in a robe ‘n’ pants wearer’s university dorm room and see some bands.
Last night, wannabe punk Sam Russo played in Brighton and stayed round mine with his dudes-of-friends from his town. Kevin Seconds, the dude playing last, was real late to the show so I ended up playing a few songs to fill the gap. I was briefly introduced to a lean, long necked guy called James Bean. He was a bottle load of fun.

We walked the long way home along the shore back to mine and sat down to do our best impressions of a punk rock jukebox on the way.


Calvinball, A,IHN and I in Southampton.

Nearly two months ago a guy who I’d hung out with a few times who shared my love with the first two Saves The Day records (plus ‘Jessie & My Whetstone’ to no end) was involved in a car crash.
His lungs were filled with blood and he broke everything from his waist downwards. He’s been in a coma for most of those two months.

Today was the first I’d heard from him since a few weeks before the accident. He’s making a full recovery and he’s going to be fine. I cannot gauge how happy I am for Liam’s parents, his sister and everyone around him.

In a bit.

The last ever Steal show was

fun.

Trumpets, Mitch Clem and Rockstars

It always bewilders me when people think that just because a band tours, they’re ‘big'. What does that even mean?
I used to play trumpet and be exempt from singing in a ska punk band (we were going to write the next ‘Shoes’, I’m telling you), who, for a band full of late teens with better things to do, played a lot of shows and went on tour a couple of times more than we should have.
Our friends still ask us “how did you get so many shows?” and “how did you get to play a festival in Prague that Mad Caddies headlined at?”.
The answer’s simple: you don’t ask, you don’t get.

I have friends who are in great bands which write songs leagues above anything we ever wrote, but they feel that by asking a promoter/whoever to put them on this or that show, they're ‘selling themselves’. Avoiding the ‘should we sell punk rock music?’ nuclear explosion, I respect that way of looking at the whole deal. It’s just up to why you’re in the band in the first place. And if you don’t know that, then maybe you should find in yourself a reason to be in a band and start a new one.


Strip by Mitch Clem

My constitution about anything music related is this:

- Travel. You don’t need to be good to tour. You don’t need to be good to tour. You don’t need to be good to tour.
Put in the effort and get the hell out of your town. You lose money, but if you weren’t losing it on something you believe in then you’d be losing it at your local JD Wetherspoons (there's a good story about the company for another post) with all your old school mates who you don't even like all that much.

- Don’t play ‘the game’. If you hear that there’s going to be an agent/label/music entrepreneur genius at your show, don’t act or play how you think they’d want you to be like. Not only does it make you have a shit time trying to fit your big ol' square body into a tiny triangular hole, but if anyone’s ever going to come into your band’s life, it’ll come naturally without any try-hard masks.

- Don’t think too far in advance. Cross out your 5 year plan and tear it up. Big things can happen in the smallest amount of time. And that could be your singer going to university. It can go the opposite way aswell. Punk rock isn’t gonna start accommodating a whole load of career prospects, and even those on cool record labels have to work shitty jobs to pay the rent. It took me a while to get it into my head, but some of my favourite bands like Jawbreaker, Kid Dynamite, Lightyear… they never got so much as petrol money and a plate of food throughout their late years.
And when people saw those dudes at their shows, they would say “go on mate, buy us a drink, will ya Mr Rockstar?”.

To totally contradict my pointing out of FT's contradiction in my previous post, the line "there are no such things as rockstars, there are just people that play music" is very true. At least in my world.

It’s a morbid thought that a group of people have jeopardised their working lives to write records that have shaped some of the most financially stable employees in the world.

In a bit.

Green Labour?

This Sunday at midday, this is happening outside the Brighton Centre.

It seems that a lot of the time, the people who are hearing politicians speak know more about what they're hearing than the speaker does.

If you believe this kind of thing and want to learn about what you're living, come down.

In a bit.

Punx, Posi and Menthol Filters

It’s an everlasting irony for me (or anyone that goes to punk rock shows regularly) that the first people to jump up and let everyone know they’re ‘punk’ are those who have tartan trousers, leather jackets and mohawks. Those that take ket before a show so they can live that Sex Pistols fucked-up-dream, mannn.
I mean at least for a couple months before they go into a job in the army.

I find them pretty easy to ignore, but they’re like hungry puppies; you’ll give them a little bit of attention and they’ll keep on coming back for more. Over, over and over again.
Bone. Fucking. Heads.

But there are also loads people who are status quo – they’re there for a good time and if that means a load of beers, high-fiving and stagediving, then that’s what they’ll do. I guarantee those people are the kind that'll be first to apologise if they accidentally body-check you or spill a drink.

I’ve been trying to think what it is that punk rock means to me. Other than stringing words together like 'friends', 'high-fives' and 'doing things in your own front room with your own resources', I’ve having a pretty hard time with it.
So I’ve made it easier for myself and picked out one period of time which epitomises the whole deal for me.

It was earlier this summer when I played a show last minute in Streatham, South London, with a bunch of my favourite bands in the UK right now: Bangers, Our Time Down Here and The Arteries.
The show was an all-dayer and 5 non-band people were there when I played at 2pm. That was the head count until about 10pm.

After the show I got the train back to my friend Steve’s house in Kingston.
The next morning, speculation of The Arteries and Bangers playing in Steve’s bedroom in a family friendly (and I mean friendly… there was a posh lift and flowerpots everywhere) block of flats solidified.
When The Arteries’ van turned up, a human conveyer-belt was made up to Steve’s room on the 4th floor before the TV, sofa and his entire record collection was moved aside to make room for the borrowed PA and a backline.

The room-show lasted about 20 minutes with both bands playing only a couple of songs each, but in that twenty times 60 seconds I had one the funnest times ever. Everyone attending or participating put a hand in to help out with gear, including Banquet Records with the PA. Nobody slacked, nobody complained. Every second was a blast.







Right now, at this present moment, that’s what I think of when Frank Turner sings “punk rock didn’t live up to what I thought it could be” (ironic, huh) and when bonehead ‘punx’ ruin my night.
Right now, that’s what punk rock means to me.
Just right now.



Fuck you, T-Mobile Fair Use Policy. I need Mock The Week.

In a bit.

Salvation will come and Nothing (ggggg).

Kieran just reminded me how much of a good time that tour with Tim Vantol was. I know "a good time" is pretty ambiguous and doesn't really explain anything at all, but it's now 3am and I've been around bars since 6pm this evening. I am shattered.

This video, however, does explain borrowed guitars and (my) out of tune voice.



Check out my CWP-esque nodding along. I'm the one in the hat.

Also, who knew Poundland sold pistachio nuts?
The shells are littering this place.

In a bit.

"It's Saturday morning with my friends and I'm fucking thrashing."

Today I was thinking about skateboarding, and the most satisfying trick I've landed.
None of which are on the internet (I don't think...) apart from this one: the rail at Chesham skatepark.

This was about four years ago, when I thought pointing my fingers and hollaring "ohhhh" after I landed a trick was cool:

chesham pow pow


In a bit.

Start a band, write a fanzine, have a conversation and Simple Is Better.

Today, I found out that The Steal are breaking up after their show with Paint It Black this Friday in Kingston.

Now, this sucks on two accounts: they will never write nor release another record again; I’ll never get to have loads of fun seeing them live again, let alone seeing them AND Dillinger Four in the same night on the dates that were planned for later this year.

My friend Sean rang me earlier and we spoke about it for a while. They’re his favourite band too. We agreed that hoping for The Steal to continue on with what they’ve done from the start is like hoping for a old, diseased dog to not die.
You don’t need to tell me that that’s probably inaccurate, but maybe you’re not lucky enough to feel that way about one band.

The Steal taught me that taking on the duty of being in a band, no matter how incredibly rad you are, does not mean taking on the seemingly obligatory responsibility to spend every minute of your day on the internet or on the phone trying to push said band further and further.

It’s well known to anyone that knows anything remotely about the band that introduced me to a majority of bands I listen to now that they have no struggle in that small corner of their lives.
People give them stick for that. I admire it. Despite my frustration.



I saw The Steal six times before making the effort of checking their self-titled record – one of them supporting Lifetime the time I mentioned in my first post.
Simply because I didn’t enjoy them.
That quickly changed, bigtime.

The old bus journey I used to endure to get to sixth-form at Chesham High School, the 353, used to take the exact same time that ‘The Steal’ used to: 20.9 minutes, start to finish.
That was a good start to the day.



Anyway, earlier this year I wrote a song called ‘Simple’. I think I stole the idea from The Steal. It’s about however much the wallpaper around you changes, your feet will always stay in the same place. Orwell would slap me. That righteous dude definitely does not like them metaphors.
I was round my friend’s house in Watford when he hit record on his laptop and I played it. You can download that here - http://rapidshare.com/files/274753519/Grow_Up.aif.html

In a bit.

“I want to reclaim all the reasons I once fell in love with a SOUND, NOT a fashion statement.”

"I'd rather be bankrupt than have you in my pub" and why there are no clinics in North Dakota.

It’s true. This is it. People have been whispering it behind their wishful-thinking swigging of gin & tonic cans in the park, and through their idle sunglasses worried expressions have been made: summer is over.

Summer is over.

At one point this summer, I played a show in Peterborough at which Tim Vantol was headlining. After the show, I went back to the promoter's house where Tim and a bunch of dudes I didn’t know too well (other than Kieran, the most enthusiastic guy about punk rock I know) were staying the night.

I don’t know when at which point the converse between me and Tim Vantol/Jugs (Jugs was driving Tim around the country and being the ‘leader’ body) happened, but they ended up inviting me a seat in the back of Jugs’ Vauxhall to do the rest of the 8 dates on the tour.

I was apprehensive at first. Going on tour with a bunch of dudes I didn’t know too well seemed a bit daunting. Did they do acid every night? Did I trust them? Would I even get along with them?
After pro-ing and con-ing, I remembered the line “let’s go ‘cause we’re not getting any younger, time doesn’t wait for me”.

I rang home and stated that I would be back in about a week’s time.



You can read James Hull’s highly entertaining, more detailed, non-ADHD written account of that week here, but in true tweeting character, I’ll say this: Tim Vantol and Jugs don’t do acid every night. I trust both of them. And I get along with them better than a lot of other people I know.

I ended up getting onto the bill for each one of the dates along with James, who writes love songs about everything I love doing, playing in a bunch of towns (plus up a wind turbine) and having a blast of a week.
Every night there was a mass-borage of drinking, a floor to sleep on and interesting people to talk to. I now make life-changing decisions based on the What Would Jugs Do philosophy. I hope to God I’m not around a tattoo gun anytime soon.

Talk to me/e-mail me if you’re interested in hearing any funny stories – gilesbidder [at] hotmail [dot] com. I think we have a winner, spammers.

Here are some more of my favourite photos from that week.













That last one was when Tim, James and Bill Boa played a song each up on a wind turbine's observation deck. This was one time when I broke my 'Say no to pay-to-play' rule.

Right now I’m listening to an ONSIND/Ghost Mice split 7” that I bought from a show in an anarchist book shop cafe-go-music club in Bradford (Bratfud) from that tour. Both second tracks on each side are my two favourite of those two bands.

The ONSIND one says everything that’s needed to be said about gender inequality in a patriarchal society, and The Ghost Mice one is about putting your foot down to everything I’m scared of other than dying – conforming to what all my teachers and school colleagues’ see as and compete for in a path of ‘growing up’. I read a sticker on a bmx the other day that read ‘this bike can take me more places than school ever could’. It made me think of that.

Anyway, if you get the chance, ask one of the ONSIND dudes what their name (One Night Stand In North Dakota) refers to. It’s what made me check out their records in the first place.

I’ve just finished my sixth mug of black tea since I got home at 6 this evening, but I’ve got a feeling that won’t be the last one of tonight.

A print-out of Orwell’s ‘Politics And The English Language’ is sitting on my bed waiting to be read, so in a bit.

“All you gotta do is start.”

Bloginning and Lifetime

Yesterday, I properly moved to my new home in Brighton; a bedsit in a house about 400 metres away from the seafront, parallel to the burnt-out pier. When I say I ‘properly’ moved in, I mean that I brought down my record player, skateboard and laptop: the three things that define ‘home’ for me.

Though I moved most of my stuff down a couple weeks ago, a number of things got in the way before I could ‘settle in’ – friends being back home where I grew up before going back to wherever (travelling, university, college) and going to shows around the south of England.



Don’t get me wrong – I chose to hang out with my old friends while I could. I chose to go to those shows and have rad, unit-filled nights of getting kicked out of clubs for having too much fun and talking out of my vulva*. But I guess it would have been to my benefit to really get used to living alone asap instead of procrastinating.

Last night I played a show in Dorking with PJ and Gaby and their ‘band’, which involves both of the skinny, hella-fashionable dudes from Apologies, I Have None. That was cool, because after a train journey surrounded by dicks getting tanked up so that later that night they could insert themselves into some ferret in a beer-stenched grease club without remembering it the next morning, it’s nice to be immediately surrounded by dudes that make you feel like you’re having fun 24/7. Even despite all the lame puns that are excreted from aforementioned dudes’ sigmoid colons.

I play shows under the moniker ‘cynics’. The reason being that my one underlying urge to write songs is in attack of those people that tell you can’t do what you want to do, and that say you’ll fail if you ever try.

I’ve been surrounded by those kind of people, and so have you.



One time I saw Bane, I heard a speech from the stage that I never thought I’d hear from that band. It made me feel as if all I ever wanted to do after the show was turn around, run out of the club and do something I wanted to do the best that I could. I still get that feeling.
Anyway, however pretentious creating a fictional name when it’s just me singing and playing my guitar, it’s one thing that rings the clocktower bell in my head. And that’s all I need to get out my front door, head to the train station, hop on a carriage to another city and just do it.

I play punk rock songs on my guitar. It sounds like it would if I listened to Billy Bragg, Gordon Gano’s Army and The Steal on repeat. Maybe ‘cause I do.

Right now I’m listening to the Lifetime self-titled LP I bought earlier from Punker Bunker, a bunker of a punk record shop in Brighton. I ALWAYS forget how good this record is.
I once saw Lifetime at the Mean Fiddler in London before the place closed down. I didn’t know them at the time.

I’ll leave you with that face-reddening thought. In a bit.

*I don’t have a vulva. I wish I did.