Shimura Curves

The Whole EBA Album

2010-06-11T15:19:00.003Z

OK, I seem to have got completely lost doing the track by track.

So instead I've put the whole album up on my Soundcloud so you can either listen to it in order, or download the tracks you're missing or whatever.

The last four tracks - Grief, Lonely, Still, Wash - were conceived as a whole. To be perfectly honest, they were originally written as a symphony, and adapted to make pop songs. Yeah, I know, what an utterly poncey thing to do. It was a point of honour, to be honest.

The Soundartist had made an offhand comment to me, about writing a symphony, after we had been hanging out with a lot of his poncey "modern classical" type mates. I have to admit, I didn't really get that kind of music. It just seemed a particularly esoteric and exclusionary subdivision of the world of avante guarde electronic music - and one where I, with my pop sentiments, never felt I belonged. It didn't help, the Soundartist's subtle ways of sabotaging me in social situations.

As an example - he played a gig at the RSA with a particularly esoteric composer who had given a 45 minute talk about her work and her composition methods before playing a five minute snippet of what was, to me, random disconnected sounds. I'd said on the bus over to the after party that I didn't understand it - what was the point of a five minute composition that required a 45 minute explanation to understand it? It seemed the musical equivalent of The Painted Word, to be honest.

We walk into the after party, we get drinks, and sit down on a sofa - and the composer comes over and takes the third seat. Immediately, Soundartist starts the conversation off by introducing us "This is my girlfriend, Kate. She thinks your music is a pile of wank." If ever I have wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole... I think I stuttered some kind of apology and left the party early. When he stumbled home drunk, hours later, he complained about how I didn't make the effort to socialise with his friends. Well, I wonder why.

Anyway, it was one of his offhand comments "why don't you write a symphony?" with the same casual tone that one might suggest "why don't you we get a pizza for dinner?" Fine. Fuck you. I was, by this point, carrying a little bit of a chip on my shoulder about his "Intellectual, Important" Soundart that got him arts council grants and gigs at the RSA, while I was still mucking about making cutesy pop songs. So I read up on music theory and revived my classical musical training and fired up the Orkester soundbank and I wrote a bloody Symphony in Four Movements.

It was originally instrumental, but during the painful process of breaking up and moving out, it acquired words. I think they're pretty self explanatory, some of the most emotionally naked things I've ever written.

Listening to it now, it's a bit shit, really, though it's still my family's favourite work that I've done. (My dad compared bits of "Still" to Yes, for him, probably the highest compliment he could think to pay me.) It sounds like someone who doesn't really know what they're doing, on a Mac with not enough processing power to render the samples.

But still. I am proud of the fact that I wrote it. It's not like poncey Soundartistboy ever did anything more than toss around electrical current and call it art, let alone write a whole bloody symphony. Bitter, me? Never.

Cancer

2010-03-09T15:20:00.002Z

It's an odd song, this one - completely out of character for me in every way, and yet still one of my favourite things I've ever written.

For such a dark, negative person, I have a pretty steady policy of only releasing the upbeat, positive stuff. Sure, I write more things that I have ever released, but it's the dark, cathartic stuff that tends to get left on the cutting room floor. When I still had a live band, the "darker" songs would usually get a couple of airings live until I either realised that the song just took too much out of me to perform life (lost Lollies track "RU486", for example) or the emotions that prompted the song had been exorcised and no longer needed to be exercised. (lost Shimuras demo "Trust" for example.)

This song just felt too "important" to lose.

The background to the song is this: there is a history of wrist problems in the women of my family. Many grandmothers and great grandmothers suffered from ganglion bursas, treated with the usual "bible therapy" of the time. So when my mother grew an odd lump on her left wrist, she viewed it as nothing out of the ordinary. However, while I was in my teenage years, as the lump swelled bigger and bigger, it was finally diagnosed, not as a ganglion or a bursa, but as a highly invasive (though thankfully not malignant) tumour.

My mum suffered through two series of operations to remove it - during the final phase, her doctor described removing all the tiny bones of her hand, scraping them clean, then putting them back together like a jigsaw puzzle, held in place with steel pins. It took years of therapy to get the movements of her hand anything approaching normal. (Ironically, the therapeudic toys she left lying round the house proved invaluable for building strength and agility when I started playing guitar, around the same time.)

So this is my state of mind, nearly 20 years later, when a lump appears on mine own wrist: total panic. To make matters worse, it's my right hand. I'm having visions of a world where I can never play guitar, draw, use a computer mouse ever again.

My first reaction was denial, but finally the Soundartist convinced me to go to the doctor. (Though this provoked another fight - officially, we were Not Living Together in order to evade taxes - he was afraid that if I registered with a local doctor, that would compromise his single person on his council tax. I offered to pay the difference - indeed, half the council tax *IF* he would put me on a lease or do something that would give me legal residency in our own flat. He, of course, refused.) The doctor prodded me, said "that's really odd" and put me on a waiting list for a biopsy.

Good old Camden Council. I waited. And waited. And went back to the same doctor, complaining of wrist pain so bad I couldn't work some days. All the time panicking that I had cancer. It was one of the promises that he made me - that if I did have cancer, he would stick with me, help me through it, no matter what? No matter what.

Of course, the tumour wasn't the worst of my problems. The relationship with the Soundartist was deteriorating, fast. The little foible about not wanting to put me on the lease of the flat (despite the fact that this would make his council tax go *down*) spread to other aspects of our relationship. He continualy demanded freedoms for himself that he would allow me. I felt pushed and constrained into a smaller and smaller space and grew more and more miserable.

I don't want to rehash the end days of our relationship, though this song puts me back in that dark, dark space. He pushed me to move out, swearing it was to make the relationship work - I didn't believe him - claiming he needed "space" and of course he dumped me for another girl before the ink was even dry on the lease for my new place.

The happy news, though, was the move to Lambeth Council, and a new doctor with a day surgery unit. I was referred to a specialist within a few weeks of moving in.

The biopsy was terrifying. I was convinced that I had cancer - it would just be the crowning badness of a bad, bad year. A friend went with me, and sat while I waited for the doctor. The doctor held my hand between his as it was anaesthetised, peering at the ugly lump - by this time, about the size of a large chestnut - then pulled out a comedy oversized syringe. Plunging the syringe straight into the base of the lump, he drew the plunger, then whistled through his teeth, before pronouncing those words I had been so terrified to hear.

"It's not a tumour."

"Are you *sure*?"

For effect, he squirted the contents of the syringe across a nearby pan. It was a thick, oily liquid with a pearlescent white sheen. "That's excess joint fluid. It's not a tumour."

It took another few investigations, X-rays, nuclear scans and full-on surgery to get to the bottom of the mystery of what it really was (an ancient, unhealed fracture) and finally cure it, but the news that I did not have cancer was like some kind of all-clear signal for my entire life. From then on, I could heal, get on with my life, put the pieces back together.

In a final irony, the now-ex Soundartist got back in touch a few months later. Camden had sent a letter scheduling the appointment for the now-not-needed biopsy. I told him I'd cancel it, that it had already taken place. Believe it or not, he had the audacity to act *hurt*. "But I told you I'd take you, I'd take care of you. I meant that," he insisted, even as he was cutting short our conversation to go away with his new girlfriend.

I gave him the most withering glance. "No," I replied. "No you didn't. And no you wouldn't have."

All of this emotion went into this song.

I've put it on Soundcloud this time as I've been having trouble with Mediafire lately, but you can still download it if you like.

After The Happily Ever After Is Over

2010-02-18T14:27:00.003Z

Well, I am a giant idiot. It'd been so long since I last blogged that I managed to skip a track in my rush to race ahead to the good bits.

Which is just as well, as this is a totally forgettable album track based around a Farfisa riff. The lyrics are standard breakup fare, playing on that common theme in fairy tales and bubblegum lyrics, the "...and they lived happily ever after!" ending which of course is never the end. The "Happily Ever After" of the romance is of course the ending of the woman's story as far as most of art, literature and music is concerned. Get married, shut up, squirt out some babies, and hopefully you'll die in childbirth so we never have to hear of you again.

Except for the moment around 2:01 when the guitar solo kicks in and the song totally transcends its dirty dishwater origins. First one guitar, then a second, in that classic 70's fifth up harmony, weaving in and out of a moog riff that swirls out of the farfisa backing in beautiful stereo, then another guitar and for about 30 seconds, it's one of the most beautiful musical interludes I've ever committed to tape.

And then the last verse comes in with those trademark 4-part (I think this might actually be 5-part) harmonies that I love writing so much.

Perhaps sometime I'll do a remix that takes that tiny guitar solo and builds it into a swhirling cosmic masterpiece. But not today.

After The Happily Ever After Is Over

Unfinished Business

2010-02-09T15:55:00.006Z

Yes, I know, I haven't updated this blog since... before Xmas? I don't even know how long it's been. That doesn't mean I've run out of songs or stories. I was - gasp - just busier working on new music than listening to old.

But, back to the past.

This song was a turning point in so many ways.

It was the first time I stopped using my DAW as a glorified 4-track cum drum machine, and actually started getting into arrangements. Started using the DAW itself as an instrument, the ability to program anything at the flick of a wrist, to chop and cut and paste bits of songs, and play with the cut-paste technique as an actual feature of a song, rather than a mere mechanism to get things done.

I was playing around with the samples in the Orkester soundback of Reason, not just putting in little string accompaniments to pop songs - but I decided to try and remember my Classial training from way back in the depths of time, and write a little string quartet in the place where a guitar solo would normally go.

From there, I decided to work backwards, stripping away the layers of instrumentation, almost like I was moving the same motif back in time through musical styles. From guitar-based pop song to orchestral piece to string quartet to Baroque recorder piece, then finally down to the basic level of just unadorned vocals. Then, to duplicate the sound of a skipping record - to reinforce the lyrical motif of a dead, stuck relationship. I didn't actually have a record player in the house to sample the sound, so I ended up sticking a live guitar jack on my tongue to get the right amount of crackle. Yes, I realise this was dangerous and stupid, but hey, one must suffer for one's art and the sound was perfect.

As to the lyrics, on the surface it appears to be about a failed romantic relationship. In fact, I do kind of worry if this was how the Sound Artist saw it, if he thought all these songs about breakups were my subliminal way of telling him something. But no - the song was about my former bandmate - Jane.

It happened at some aftershow party, backstage at someone else's gig - christ, I think it was the Brixton Academy. The Dandy Warhols. I was halfway through a conversation with her when one of her popstar pals walked into the room, and she just turned and walked away, almost mid-sentance, to greet someone she'd been telling me two weeks earlier that she didn't even like.

At that moment, I just thought "Well, fuck YOU."

It was her band, from day 1. That was the irony. Four years earlier, when I'd landed in London with a suitcase and a guitar case, I was *done* with the music industry. I'd done it for a decade, served my time as a session player in NYC, and I was sick of it. Somehow she persuaded me to start a band. I needed the encouragement more than anything. It was much easier for me to write for an audience, to write to spec, to give someone what they want - and her fantasy was being a rock star, so I took her dream as my own, and worked to make that dream come true.

But after four years of life in a touring band, the strains were starting to show. I always knew she was in it for the fame aspect, the ligging aspect - something I'd joked about on songs like "Quite Frankly I Think I Could Do A Better Job Of Being Famous" and "Flavour of the Week" - hell, when I first met her and her partner, they were running a zine tas a way to blag their way into backstage parties. It was a fun joke, a snotty-nosed bratty way sticking fingers up at the grey landscape of landfill indie rock. But after several years, we were living very different lives. We'd both started living in Swiss Cottage, working Nu Media type jobs. She'd got married and moved to the suburbs. I'd quit my job and moved to Hoxton.

Yeah, let's face it, I was a *twat*. A grade A certified hipster scum Shoreditch twat. I was out of control - but after the repressive L-shaped apartment confinement of the abusive relationship I'd recently escaped, I *needed* to be utterly away from any form of control. I hung out cadging drinks off drugs novelists and dissolute painters. I flitted from the Foundry to the Mother Bar. I danced the night away in sweaty basements to drum'n'bass. I mooned the crowd at Nesh and came home finding my purple army jacket had been remixed to green with no memory of the intervening two days. I gulped down drugs and shagged male models, and even managed to get myself written about in the gossip column of an Edgy Style Magazine (TM) for being badly behaved at a certain West End electro club. The night of our album launch party, I took the bus home and modelled nude for a painter I picked up in a bar BECAUSE I COULD. I was an absolute and complete pisshead twat. And I loved it.

And Jane was living in St. Albans and going for sushi with Duran Duran and Fun Lovin' Criminals (no... *really*) because her husband worked for a big label.

I take responsibility for my part in the breakup of that band. Of course my alcoholism played a huge part. I was not a nice person. But at the moment that Jane walked away, I knew that it was over. I was playing a role onstage that had nothing to do with who I was, in order to make her happy, when the disparity between that role and who I had turned into was actually killing me. If she wanted the fun bits of fame - the backstage parties, the sushi, hanging out with David Bowie - David fucking Bowie - without the shit, the slog, the touring, the toilet venues on the way up, the fucking bored out of my mind interviews that I had to do and she didn't - well, good luck with it.

Within a matter of months of that unfinished conversation, my life completely changed. Not permanently, but it was another chapter. A better chapter. I met the Sound Artist. I fell in love. I moved out of Hoxton and that mad life. I practically quit drinking. The bad life fell away, and only this song remained. For now...

Unfinished Business

If We Can Stay Together

2009-12-30T16:05:00.004Z

This one is pure 60s bubblegum-gospel in the vein of The Archies and all those lovely honey dripping Jeff Barry productions. Bouncing drums, big throbbing farfisa organ, and a melody bouncing back and forth between steel drums and guitar - this was one of the first songs I ever recorded with my Jazzmaster, when the strings were new and it sounded like cut glass.

But the real fireworks happen in the vocal harmonies, especially at the end. For the first time in mine own home, I wasn't constrained by the limitations of a 4-track, and decided to just keep piling harmonies on - by the end, I think I had 16 different vocal tracks. These days I think nothing of that - an average Shimura Curves track usually has at least 8 vocal tracks (4 singers all double tracked in stereo) but at the time it seemed almost magical to be able to just keep going.

The lyrics are straightforward enough. The soundartist and I were on one of many rocky patches, yet I still held out a ray of optimism. He was a packrat, the kind of man who never threw anything away, never bought a new anything. He had had the same computer for 10 years, he had inherited a suite of old appliances from his grandparents, his clothes he wore until they fell off him. I thought this was really commendable - I was quite proud of the way he would never give up on any piece of gear, he'd drag out the soldering iron and fix it.

It's just too bad he didn't have the same approach to relationships. There was a bit of faulty wiring, but it seemed sound to me. It didn't seem to me like there was that much wrong, apart from his bizarre insistence that somehow a 2-bedroom 2-bathroom flat wasn't actually big enough for the two of us. He refused counseling, he refused any kind of compromise or discussion. To this day, I can't really figure it out. He constantly demanded freedoms for himself that he refused to concede me. The only answer I've come up with was that he fell too fast, and he fell out of love just as quickly. We definitely moved in together too quickly, within about 6 months of meeting - I suppose for him, moving in together was like some intensive form of dating whereby he didn't have to leave the house to get sex. For me, moving in with someone was a hugely big step, one I thought over, and thought over everything it meant to me, before I did it. And then he turned around and claimed that it was always intended as temporary. All I can say is, I wouldn't have done it had I thought that.

The only thing I can really do in retrospect is to throw my hands up and realise that I loved him a hell of a lot more than he ever loved me. I've spent my whole life trying to love and never being loved in return. I overheard two women in a bookshop the other week, talking about relationship self help books. "If a woman is having trouble, she'll bargain, she'll try to work through things, she'll talk and talk and talk - but if a man decides he doesn't want to be in a relationship, that's it, there ain't nothing on earth that will make him stay."

So this song, I guess, was me, like King Knut, standing on the beach, with the waves licking round my feet, trying to hold back the tide.

Together

Harriet

2009-12-17T16:58:00.002Z

This is an old, old song. Not one of the first songs I ever wrote, but certainly dating back to 1992. I wrote it originally during the total mental breakdown that resulted in my being arrested, and sentenced to a 28 day rehab program that caused such an utter collapse to my precarious mental state that I was transferred from rehab to a mental hospital. Which was where I wrote this song.

It was also one of the first batch of songs I re-recorded using my laptop, while I was still learning how to use Reason and Cubase with songs I had sitting around. I swear there was no reason in particular for picking this song, other than that I liked the melody - one of those cases of odd prescience where one's "creativity" seems to be one step ahead of one's conscious mind in terms of what's going on in your life.

The eponymous Harriet was my roommate in the nuthutch, a 50 year old career schizophrenic who used to keep me up half the night shouting at god and the devil. Considering the number of times I was hospitalised between the ages of 15 and 22, I was used to this kind of thing, and to be honest, more annoyed than disturbed or anything. The staff didn't like the patients wandering the halls at night, so I'd go to the patient lounge where there was an ancient, badly tuned piano, which proved my greatest joy and consolation for those 28 days.

That piano kept me entertained for hours. I'd grown up always having a piano in the house, though I wasn't fond enough of practicing to justify proper lessons after the age of about 12. It died shortly after we moved upstate. My parents decided to sand and re-polish the ballroom floor, and instead of lifting it up into the parlour, my dad simply rolled it out onto the porch overnight. Of course, it rained, and the piano was ruined. So my father got an axe and a crowbar, and together we smashed the thing into pieces. The soundboard (with strings still attached) and the striking mechanism, however, we kept - my father later turned it into a "sculpture" in the ballroom, complete with hanging plant and bust of Beethoven. My sisX0r and I spent hours of fun banging the strings with mallets and metal spoons and things and recording the results with our 4-track. (I wish I still had tapes of these tracks - my favourite is still one where she threw a mic into the freezer and made a rhythm track out of the sound of shutting the seal on a bag of peas.)

Anyway, whacked out on more drugs (legal ones, prescribed by doctors) than I'd ever consumed to get me into rehab, I used to spend the nights banging away on this old piano, my forehead pressed against the wood - or better yet, with my head inside the case if there were no staff around to check on me - writing these endless repetitive Philip Glass style compositions that sounded just fantastic on heavy tranquilisers and 3 hours sleep. I'd sleep during the daytime, when my roommate was out at therapy. Since I didn't smoke, the staff were utterly at a loss for any means to get me out of bed, as threatening to revoke my ward-leaving privileges did nothing to move me. (Funny how no one ever thought to revoke my piano-playing privileges - I think those were sacrosanct as some kind of "art therapy".)

Harriet was one of the whole raft of proper songs that came out of that time, the clanging piano noises cleaned up and made nice-nice and turned into pop songs. But if you listen carefully, you can hear the cycling 4-note melody underneath all the noisy guitars. (It's really just the chord progression from "Boys Don't Cry" with a couple of minor modulations.) The vocal melody uses a trick, a sort of audio version of an optical illusion (as much favoured by Bach) to make it seem as if the song is continually rising in pitch, up, up, floating up and away.

I changed the last verse - mainly because I couldn't remember the original last few lines, which adds a sweet ending to a song which was originally totally bittersweet. It's about disengagement, alienation, the constant restrain of "leave me alone" - the irony being, of course, that the song was actually a reflection of my state of mind at the point in time I revived. I'd been living with the Soundartist for nearly a year, and things were dragging badly.

Really, I just wanted to be left alone to carry on the sort of bohemian existence I'd scratched out. I'd burned out on my posh advertising job in the wake of the dot.com crash. My band had splintered under pressure and I wanted to be done with the music industry. All I really wanted was to be left alone to record my weird symphonies in my bedroom, and work a part time temp job to pay for the groceries.

The soundartist - although he was living almost exactly the same lifestyle (i.e. minus the temp job and plus a trust fund, a flat in Bloomsbury his mum had bought him and an Arts Council grant to cover his expenses) simply didn't think this was enough for me. He hounded me to "do something" with these songs I was recording, and not in a supportive way, either, but in a "you're worthless without a record contract" way. I responded by withdrawing further, moving my studio into the spare room and sleeping in there, instead of in our bedroom, between recording bouts.

He confessed to me later, in a sort of drunken moment, that it was because he was actually jealous. Despite having carved a career as a professional Sound Artist, music was not something that came naturally to him. It took him weeks to get anything out of the music generation software we had, and when he did, it was highly cerebral and required explanation. For me, it's always been completely effortless, writing catchy melodies. It's odd, how much time we spent being jealous of one another's talents - perhaps why artists should never have romantic relationships? He was jealous of my ability to pull something accessible and "pop" out of almost anything, while I was jealous of his ability to make abstract, intellectual, experimental... noise. I have always wanted to make unlistenably *weird* music, and have never succeeded.

He couldn't understand that for me, the joy of music was in *making* it, not in displaying it to others and getting cold hard cash for it. His relationship with Art, indeed, always seemed to me, to be purely commercial on a simple transactional level. Not that there's anything wrong with getting paid - but it was more like, he never did it for the simple joy of it, the play of it. If there wasn't cash or coverage to be had, he wasn't interested in making it.

The irony being, of course, within a year of his dumping me, I started Shimura Curves, and we had more ostensible Success (radio play, magazine coverage, being on the telly) than the Soundartist ever had or likely ever will.

I recorded this song before we broke up, rather than during the process. Listening back to it now, it's stunningly obvious what was going on, but I was oblivious at the time.

Harriet

Past Perfect

2009-12-11T15:55:00.004Z

So much for trying to upload one MP3 a week, huh? Will try to keep more on top of this, though this time of year is a bad time to attempt to do anything with any regularity.

Past Perfect.

I always promised Matt that I'd write a song about him some day. We had an on-again off-again tour romance for ages - every time our paths crossed, we'd just kind of fall into each others' arms again. But the truth was, I lived in London and he lived in Hull and neither of us were going anywhere. So we took our romance where we could, supporting each others' bands on tour, trying to play the same festivals to snatch backstage moments.

Matt was probably one of the most beautiful men I'd ever known - the kind of angelic blond Englishman that caused Pope Gregory the Great to remark "non angli sed angeli". About 6'2", with long, curly golden-blond hair that fell in great tousled masses to his skinny shoulders, wide blue eyes, a viking nose and the softest of perfect peach lips. He played guitar like a man possessed. I didn't even know if he was a boy or a girl the first time I met him (he was playing in an "all girl" band) but when he let me braid his hair, I saw the golden stubble on his jawline. Just everything about him was golden. The first night we slept together, I woke up to see a sign reading YOU COULD DIE TODAY pinned to his ceiling and knew this was going to be something... *special*.

We never got it together, really. Morning-after pills, hangovers, incompatible touring schedules, it all proved too much. I carried a poem he wrote me as a text message saved on my phone for years. He was obsessed with Canada - I think he assumed from the fact that I played in a band that counted as CanCon, that I was Canadian, too - no, I was the 1/3 that was not.

The song was my attempt at utterly pure bubblegum - right down to the direct lift of the Yummy Yummy Yummy intro. I spent ages working on that, but it still doesn't seem quite right. I kinda want to rework the song with different drums, as there's a lot about it that I do love. The gentle "la la la-la-la-aaaah" on the choruses. The weird thrum of the gurgling noise I used for a bass. The hard panned tremolo keyboard wub - I did actually record two separate keyboards and put them slightly out of phase and panned them left and right for the effect instead of actual proper wub.

The breakdown where the drums drop out and it's just voice and the odd synths is one of my favourite musical moments I've ever written. I kinda want to re-record the rest of the song to match. But the song is about regret and not getting it together, so perhaps it's fitting that I could never get the song to fit together.

Past Perfect.mp3

a tour diary from those days

Liar, Liar

2009-11-30T17:03:00.004Z

This was a very early song, one of the more successful attempts at merging Bubblegum Pop with Electronics. Start with a playground chant of a chorus displaying all the classic hallmarks of 60s Bubblegum - double words, repeated phrases, call and response. A simple earworm of a melody, handclaps, tongue-twisting lyrics and then that gear-shifting key-change for the last chorus.

But the song is a lot more complex that it initially seems - it takes a lot of work to make a three minute song move so energetically. Melodies shift from one instrument to another, in fact, two different synths repeat the riff in harmony, like an electronic conversation, before it passes back to pizzicato strings. The whole song hinges on a classic trick - moving from a minor key for the verses to a major for the choruses.

The sounds were layered quite specifically - watch out for the high harmonic ring modulation during verses to create a sense of dis-ease. OH! And one of my favourite pieces of electronic manipulation ever - the garbled and filtered high-pitched bursts of insect noise at about 2:07 emmulating the "ooh, did you hear what SHE did..." breathless tone of the relentless gossip.

The song is, of course, about my abusive, compulsive liar Munchausen Syndrome ex-boyfriend. A lawyer by day, DJ/promoter by night, he lied utterly compulsively about utterly everything, for every imaginable reason - or more often, no apparent reason.* I didn't even know the full extent of it - I was still finding out lies he'd told people about me, years after we'd broken up. The song was my way of dealing with this, really.

*One of his worst - or at least, most upsetting lies: I'd been due to fly back from NY on 9/11 and was stuck in the airport, without any way of contacting anyone. He got so much attention from having a "dead girlfriend" that when I reappeared on the internet, alive, he MADE UP two dead friends in Brooklyn whom he claimed had perished in the catastrophe. He got himself time off work to "deal with this" - even went so far as to organise a benefit night at his club to raise money in honour of them. (Still never entirely found out what happened to the money, if it went to charity, or if he just pocketed it.)

Anyway, if you like bubblegum, have a listen:

LIAR LIAR - 192 MP3 format

WARNING: @haido has just informed me that this song involves LARGE AMOUNTS OF RUDE WORDS. Please do not listen if you are likely to be offended by repeated incidents of the f-word or the s-word.

Proto-Shimuras Projects No.1: The Electric Bubblegum Arkestra

2009-11-19T15:33:00.003Z

Yes, hello. It's been a long time since I posted anything to this blog. But with the planned release of the Shimura Curves album (at some point in the future. Who knows when. We're kind of deadlocked over the mastering process at the moment. Hoped to have it out by the end of the millennium, but looks like that isn't going to happen) I decided to go back and trace the evolution of where Shimura Curves came from.

Of course you know about the Great Lost Shimura Curves album or you wouldn't be reading this. And indeed, the other lost album that could be pieced together from singles, demos and out-takes. But did you know that before the Great Lost Album, there was actually an entire lost *BAND*?

The Electric Bubblegum Arkestra, the Shimura Curves that never was. (Though several EBA songs did eventually make it into SC's set to become live favourites.)

After the breakup of The Lollies, I was at a complete loose end. A well-known indie label had been in the process of courting us, and as the principal songwriter, that interest fell on my solo material - except I suddenly no longer had a band. I was still writing furiously, as much as I could, with a 4-track, a drum machine and a sample pedal, in a crazy Clerkenwell flat. That flat, its constant noise, the constant contact buzz (our doorstep was a well known hangout for dope dealers) and the crazy rotating assortment of housemates (a staff writer for an Edgy Style Magazine, an IDM nerd who alternated between a job as tea boy at Warp and an engineering degree in Sheffield, and a perverted Scottish singer-songwriter) was simultaneously the most inspiring and impossible environment in which to work.

Originally, I meant to record with the Lollies' soundman, Jesse, working as recording engineer and producer, but after cutting a 4-song demo (featuring an early version of Other People's Cigarettes) he promptly disappeared. And by disappeared, I mean, stopped answering his phone or his email, ignoring texts, and operating a complicated system whereby people had to ring a certain number of times before hanging up on the mobile before he'd even answer the door. The A&R man who was interested in signing us was not impressed by this sort of behaviour. "Just give me his address, I'll go and get the masters - I used to have to pry master tapes off Kevin Shields back in the day" he assured me, but when Jesse failed to deliver, the interest dried up, and I was left holding the bag.

It was around this time that the perverted Scottish singer-songwriter gave me a particularly good piece of advice. (He was brilliant at advice, having already made every mistake in the book. He saved me from a complete mental breakdown after the first Lollies full-length by quoting Oscar Wilde at me and telling me not to read my press, but weigh it.) He told me, effectively to sack the band and replace them with a shiny silver box instead.

Enter the man who would eventually become the villain of the piece. A few months earlier, I had started dating an experimental electronic artist who became known to my friends and internet buddies as the "Handsome Sound Artist". He lived in a Bloomsbury flat filled to the rafters with shiny metal boxes of all kinds - banks of oscillators, oscilloscopes, primitive synthesisers, van der graff generators, violet ray machines, weird antennae for detecting the microwave background radiation from the Big Bang and the electrical hum of the National Grid with which he assembled the sound collages he released on experimental labels. It was a kind of geek's wonderland where we indulged all these mad projects, as he would obtain various toys and then discard them a few months later after getting bored with them.

One of these discarded toys was a copy of the sequencer, Reason. He'd picked it up, tried to stretch piano tones to be hours long, made some bad ambient techno then gave up. I picked it up, took to it like a effects pedal geek to a synthesier, and started to compose demented bubblegum pop and cheesy symphonies using the Reason Orkester samplebank. We played a couple of gigs as this lineup, with him jamming along on his miniature electrical substation (which meant all our songs had to be in G as the National Grid actually hums at a frequency very close to a low G) - Electricity, Bubblegum and the Orkester soundbank became the Electric Bubblegum Arkestra.

The first single - and only proper release - was the single Elephants, on Manchester's now-defunct Valentine Records.

I wrote the song while on holiday at HSA's family seat in Wiltshire, in an ancient brick pile overlooked by a White Horse cut into the cliff above. I'd only recently encountered the phrase "the elephant in the room" (I think IXL's Mark S had dropped it in a conversation, and I was utterly fascinated by it) and wrote a odd, lumbering Shaffel-fuelled stomper about it.

The elephant in the room at the time was, of course, my drinking, which had reached very problematic proportions by the end of The Lollies. In retrospect, this appears fairly obvious in the accompanying comicbook artwork that I did to promote the release. But, as with much of the EBA's output (and so much of my life at that time, in the foggy alcoholic haze it was for most of the time) things that seem blindingly obvious in retrospect were only really obliquely glimpsed at the time. Songs that I had utterly no idea what they were about when I was writing them (or that I thought was writing about a completely different topic) would become incredibly prescient for situations I was about to go through.

Anyway, track 1 from the great lost EBA album, After The Happily Ever After Is Over (and longtime live favourite in early Shimuras sets):

Elephants (128 MP3 version)

The Texas-Germany Connection

2006-09-25T11:34:00.000Z

(thanks to my dad for the links)

We're on the radio in Texas! KOOP, 91.7 in Austin has been playing Noyfriend.

Also, apparently we're going down a storm in Germany, or at least according to the German Rolling Stone Messageboard. Sehr gutt!

kommen aus dem süden londons, sind vier damen (aaah...) und ihre musik gilt als eine mixtur aus den pipettes, kraftwerk, stereolab und jesus and mary chain.

I think that's good? Ja? I think I see the German for "Stereolab" in there. ;-)

Oh, and GreenPeaNess have said some Nice Things about Noyfriend's Krautrock Connection:

It's been pretty difficult to ignore the motorik beat's glorious return to indie-pop prominence, but it's certainly been possible; I honestly do like all those bands like the Early Years and Emperor Machine, but it's pretty much impossible to see any frivolity in their approach to music-making whatsoever, and in light of the way frivolity kinda sorta defines every action that I've ever taken I just don't find myself fiending for them. I'm only bringing this void up, of course, because the Shimura Curves seem to have swooped in to fill it quite nicely - Tom over at the wholly essential Indie MP3 characterized them as "the Pipettes fronting Kraftwerk", a description of such elegant accuracy that it practically puts me in literal pain to hang those quote marks around it. What's revelatory about the Curves (or at least "revelatory" in that gloriously ephemeral winding-down-summer sense), after all, is the way they're able to pick up threads of the motorik sound which, in the hands of a band more interested in righteousness than awesomeness, would probably end up sounding like study hall rather than recess; the organ on "Noyfriend", for instance, may basically only be distinct for the way it sustains itself, but it stands in such striking, warm opposition to the relentless urgency of the beat or the achingly bloodless intonation of the vocals that it pretty much had me cheering like a jackass to nobody in particular as much as any song I've heard since "Pull Shapes". I mean, there's your answer as to why this band sure feels remarkable - they're hardly the only people turning their hip40something cousins' record collections into something for the chi'ren, but damned if anyone else is doing it with these records, let alone doing it so ridiculously well. (Click here to buy The Kids At The Club, an outstanding recent collection of indie-pop released by How Does It Feel Records featuring "Noyfriend", directly from the label)

Hello, Mum, I'm On The Telly!

2006-09-08T11:13:00.000Z

Looks like our BBC Debut will be happening on Wednesday, 13th September. BBC 1 Breakfast show. Get up early! (Or set your videos.)

Well, Knock Me Down With A Feather!

2006-09-07T11:47:00.000Z

I never thought in a million years that Drowned In Sound would say nice things about us. And yet... they do!

On first impressions, Shimura Curves look like The Pipettes' older and infinitely wiser sisters, yet musically they couldn't be any further apart if they tried. 'Stronger', their side of this seven-inch single, is by far the stronger of the two tracks on offer. Sounding like outcasts from the Creation school of stargazing (notice we didn't mention anything to with looking at one's feet), Shimura Curves recall the blissful Scar era of Lush alongside more palatable, hazy effects-laden harmonisers such as Spirea X or Sambassadeur, and on this evidence are definitely worth keeping an out for.

Spirea X!!!! Lush!!!! I mean... SPIREA X!!!!!

::spins around happily until she falls down drunk and giddy::

(Yeah, I know I said I wasn't reading our press any more. But I just found that while browsing DiS for giggles.)

Single Out Today!

2006-08-29T11:02:00.000Z

Errrr... apparently.

Available from Bumlove direct - £3.99 + £1 p+p to brainlove7club@gmail.com - or from these shops around the country:

Bangor - Spillers
Bath - Replay
Birmingham - Tempest / Swordfish
Brighton - Rounder Records
Bristol - Replay / Imperial
Glasgow - Melody Bar
Leeds - Jumbo
Liverpool - Probe Records
London - Sister Ray / City 16 / Lik+Neon / Beats Workin' / Rough Trade / Puregroove
Manchester - Piccadilly Records
Nottingham - Selectadisc
Oxford - Fopp / Polar Bear

And a few other places that I forget... Norwich, Newcastle, Edinburgh, and York maybe...

Drink Pink

2006-08-15T10:03:00.000Z

Yes, I know. Two gigs in two days, are we mad?

Upcoming...

2006-08-08T15:15:00.000Z

Plan B

2006-08-08T15:12:00.000Z

OK, the problem wasn't getting Plan B to pay attention... the problem was finding a Plan B writer (who liked girlpop) who hadn't actually *been* in Shimura Curves. The Lex admirably steps up to bat:

Also having relationship difficulties is Kelly Rowland – but she can at least comfort herself with the fact that the astonishing ‘Gotsta Go’ (Sony) is the first song on which she’s convinced as a viable solo artist. Over fuzzy crunk synths, she delivers an imperious vocal performance, her contralto quivering as the song builds to its stunning wordless hook: a “WO-OH! WO-OH! WO-OH! WO-OH!” filled with fire and ice and pride and dread, Rowland tearing herself in two because she loves him but knows she has to leave him.

She could do worse than taking a leaf out of Shimura Curves’ book. ‘Stronger’ (Brainlove) is the sound of scales falling from their eyes and blossoming into gorgeously pretty harmonies and twinkling music box melodies. The ladies about town intone the killer line – “My sin wasn’t that I was angry or was hateful; it was that you wanted to save me, and I wasn’t grateful” (cue climactic, swelling strings) – with serenity and self-sufficiency, and the song takes its place with ease alongside those other pop anthems to female emotional liberation of the same title by Britney and the Sugababes.

How the bloggers saw it...

2006-08-08T14:39:00.000Z

Nothing But Green Lights:

Shimura Curves | Relaxed All Girl Lap-pop harmony. The predatory dance of a London girl wielding a Casio mind-warp device and a wah-wah pedal.

Oxford Bands:

All-girl outfit Shimura Curves force us into gently joyful convulsions to their marvellously sugary sweet pop and mellow harmonies. Led by a simple drum loop on a laptop and straightforward chords dipped in lovely warm effects from guitarist Kate St.Claire, they put in a charming performance capped by some disarmingly girly dance routines.

Clean Skies:

Saw: Shimura Curves and Anat Ben David. Girly electropop/art-rock with clever words and infectious beats. Very enjoyable the both.

Maps Magazine:

so it's over to the Lounge Tent for the sparkly Shangri-Las meets casio keyboards pop of Shimura Curves. I'm slightly apprehensive about reviewing them, as they count amongst their number some of my favourite music writers - suffice to say they're ace and you should go and see them at the next available opportunity.

Sweeping The Nation:

If Emmy is the wolf pawing away at the wooden exterior of the preset female singer-songwriter door, back in the Lounge tent Shimura Curves are the electro black sheep of this apparent Girl Group Revival. Turning scrappiness into an artform in the way Girlfriendo used to do before they turned tail and became Love Is All, the four women something-akin-to-harmonise to Powerbook loops and the odd distorted guitar. It's probable they don't yet have a better song than the Mary Chain-reappropriating Just Like Friends that was much loved around here from their Myspace and the don't-say-twee charm of the live show perhaps doesn't translate in this atmosphere but there's something going on here that'll split opinion but very much be worth watching over time, for our money. It's also a much more agreeable use of female vocals over electronic methods than the touted Persil will deliver over on the Truck stage later, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

OK, that's as far as I got down Google before the links degenerated into truck-driving mathematicians talking about the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture...

Pre-Truck Review

2006-07-26T09:53:00.000Z

www.soundsxp.com

With a name like Shimura Curves you might have expected math-rock (you knew it was the solution to Fermat’s Last Theorem, didn’t you, number geeks?). It’s actually laptop pop with a big dose of Jesus and Mary Chain distortion pedal which confuses the senses in a good way. Normally a fourpiece but today three girls and a pepper plant (don’t ask…) they sing and dance to the electro rhythms of ‘I Capture the Castle’ and have probably penned the only paean to asparagus in ‘Sticky and Brown’ (I heard it as 'asparagus' though it seems about chocolate and may have been announced in a chocoholic's denial moment*). I have a personal prejudice about songs about horrible Hoxton (‘Mother’) but equilibrium is more than reestablished with the Strokes-meet-synths metronymic mash of ‘My Friend’. Their forthcoming single on Brainlove Records will definitely be worth hearing.

*Actually, I said Artichokes (in reference to "Atoms For Peace" but what's a vegetable between friends?)

Also, backstage photo by Jill:

Trucked

2006-07-25T10:31:00.000Z

(Comment removed for legal reasons)

Truck reviews will be posted here. Oh yeah!

www.indie-mp3.co.uk

Shimura Curves are a South London band but don't hold that against them. If you can imagine The Pipettes fronting Kraftwerk then you may get a small inkling on how the band sounds. I can also hear hints of Sterolab in there amongst the Jesus and Mary Chain samples. The band consist of Kate (ex-The Lollies), Miss AMP, Marianna, and Anna Fielding. Apart from Kate's guitar the music just comes from the casio banks stored on their powerbook. The band had a certain charm amongst Marianna's sore throat, the heat, Anna's giggles and the computerised beats were just what was needed after the earlier disappointments in the lounge tent (I mean you Harlettes!). The songs are simple affairs although I'm not sure what they were called. Luckily I can recognise some of them from the demos I picked up. The Mary Chain samples on Just Like Friends means it's a standout for me although their ode to chocolate Sticky and Brown glides along smoothly. Shimura Curves - just like, erm, honey!

(thanks to Brainlove for the photo)

Last.fm image

2006-07-14T10:14:00.001Z

If, by any chance, you are reading this, and you're also a last.fm regular - could you do us a favour? Our band picture on there is very old - it features Frances, that's how old it is. I've uploaded one of the lovely Vicki Churchill pictures, and if enough of you head over there and vote for it, that will become our band picture over there. Which will be much better. So please, point your clicks this way, and let's get last.fm to show the Shimuras in their lovely red and black and white glory!

I thank you.

Three Words!

2006-07-12T16:13:00.000Z

Time Out! Woo!

Blogged Again!

2006-07-04T16:14:00.000Z

A huge thank you to everyone who came down to 93 Feet East, braved the heat and made that "the best Shimuras gig yet" (apparently)! Photos of the inevitable ruin thanks to Ed Lynch-Bell

Somebody out there likes us, as we've been Blogged Again:

For some reason I do not trust songs that start with a drum roll. Of any kind.

I have not figured out why actually.

But here is a band that proved me decidedly wrong, The Shimura Curves, or " four girls from london playing pristine electro pop" which is how they describe themselves on their myspace account. Listing under Influences in the same breath are The Jesus And Mary Chain, Destiny's Child, and Sterolab. What to make of that, I have no idea, but if Im Not Afraid is a product of that mismash, then I dont really care.

The song sounds kitschly pop, what with the blatant electronic effects sprinkled everywhere and oo-ah echoing vocals, plus the lyrics are all mathematical geekery, but somehow in all this a jaunty infectious tune is created that will have you humming " i'm not afraid.. of electricity" at suspicious times. Think something like the Pipettes, but without the colourful sashaying and cutesy stuff in the music and you have this. Not as slick and luxuriant, but all honest to goodness finely tuned melodic chaos.

An interesting quality of this song lies in that while it may sound simplisitically repetitious at first, no thanks in part to that computer doo-dee that goes on happily in the background as if it were the most natural thing in the world, it merely *sounds* deceptively simple. Like the universe of singularities and infinities it sings of, the song is best taken in its beautiful whole, a simple easily appreciable whole made up of tiny invisible bits and processes that are very complicated upon closer inspection.

I like any review that talks about science and the nature of the Universe.

Vicki Churchill's Photos

2006-06-26T12:45:00.000Z

Official portraits, y'all!

Society Girls:

Das Fraulein Maschine:

T Minus Lezzing Up: 5... 4... 3... 2...

In Flux

2006-06-26T10:07:00.000Z

Hurrah, we've been MP3-blogged on the amazing and wonderful Fluxblog and new Swedish MP3 blog of Oskar Lin.

Life is good!

Thanks to those of you who came out last night. We apologise for the Ruin.

Rip It Up And Start Again

2006-06-22T09:24:00.000Z

The more you try to not talk about something, or not think about something, the more it rises up to consume your waking and sleeping thoughts and turns into thoughtworms and rises up and chokes you.

I've been coming under increasing pressure from bandmates and management not to talk about personal stuff on this blog, not to express my own personal opinions on a site which bears the whole band's name - essentially not to shoot my mouth off in a way which could negatively affect of compromise the band.

Fair enough. My personal thoughts and experiences will be moving to Masonic Boom while this blog will be saved only for the most banal and non-controversial posts of band news and gigs and the like.

I sincerely hope that my Koffee Kvetch Krew will join me there.

RIP, TOTP

2006-06-21T09:23:00.000Z

Well, that's one lifelong dream I'm never going to be able to acheive now. After 42 years, the BBC is pulling the plug on Top Of The Pops.

I'm going to go to my grave never even having had the chance to go on TOTP.

This makes me almost unspeakably sad. The end of an institution. The death of a dream.

Good Feeling

2006-06-20T17:44:00.000Z

Well, one fear allayed. The cover proof looks great. (Please click to see photo, as the shrinky one looks kinda weird and pixilated, stupid blogger.)

The Worst Tarot Reading I've Ever Had

2006-06-20T16:11:00.000Z

So I was actually going to come in today and post a positive blog entry, all about how I'd been to a great gig on Friday, and then gone to a great party on Saturday, and all about the interesting conversation I had with Galia and Pil about the dialogue between art and commerce (one of the first people I've talked to who actually had interesting things to say about the conflict between Indie and Pop which wasn't the usual sexist drivel) but instead I'm all bent out of shape.

It sucks to feel like you're being taken advantage of. It sucks feeling like someone is repeatedly violating your trust, and disrespecting you and your rights by continually not asking or obtaining consent for the simplest things. Consent, legal or otherwise, is such a tricky thing. It's the difference between sex and rape. It's the difference between a collaboration and a theft.

It especially sucks when it is in the course of a business relationship that you felt... cautious about from the very beginning. It feels like every single negative gut reaction is being confirmed. It makes me feel less and less comfortable with a decision I feel was forced upon me.

So, like the post-Jungian hippie chick I am, I did a tarot reading. And it's the worst reading I've ever seen. The Tower, the Ten of Swords and even Death. (Yes, I know it's usually a positive card, but not in conjuction with those other two.)

The first card, the significator, is placed in the center of the cross. This card represents the prime energy manifest in your life. Ten of Swords (Ruin): Crushing defeat brought about by idle intellectualism divorced from reality. Sadness and desolation in the aftermath of a catastrophic and total collapse. A decisive conclusion brought about through the swift and merciless application of overwhelming force.

The second card, placed above the significator, represents Air. It describes your spirit, process of thought, and the influence of reason. Three of Swords (Sorrow): Unsettling news leading to heartbreak or loneliness. Tactless or hurtful words. Acting without consideration for the emotions of others. Betrayal of trust or confidence. The revelation of a painful truth.

The third card, placed to the right of the significator, represents Fire. It describes your motivations, creative energies, and the influence of passion. The Lovers: A caring and trusting relationship. Beauty and inner harmony. A decision calling for emotional control and faithfulness to spiritual values.

The fourth card, placed below the significator, represents Water. It describes your emotions, meditations, and the influence of love. King of Cups: The essence of water behaving as air, such as a billowing cloud in the blue sky: Great maturity, endless patience, tolerance of other points of view, and a deep knowledge of human nature. One who intuitively knows the strengths of those around him, and gently cultivates them. Remaining calm and relaxed in all situations, and making artful use of diplomacy or a quiet word to resolve conflicts. The ability to listen to what another person is saying, and truly understand what is in their heart. A rewarding partner and a beloved leader.

The fifth card, placed to the left of the significator represents Earth. It describes your physical presence, position in life, and the influence of the material world. The Tower: Unforeseen catastrophe. An abrupt change, perhaps leading to a new lifestyle and enlightenment. May indicate a broken relationship, divorce, or failure in business or career.

At this point the cross is complete and the triangle is formed. The sixth card, placed on the bottom left of the triangle represents one of two opposing forces. Judgement: A swift and conclusive decision. The resolution of a matter long unanswered. A change in point of view, most frequently towards greater enlightenment. Final balancing of karma.

The seventh card, placed on the bottom right of the triangle represents the force that opposes the bottom left card. These forces may be external, but they are frequently one's own inner archetypes in conflict. Death: A major change or transformation, possibly traumatic and unexpected. Freedom from the shackles of the past. A new beginning. Death coupled with rebirth, usually related to consciousness and lifestyle.

The eighth card, the reconciler, is placed below the cross in the third vertex of the triangle. This is the force that will resolve the conflict between the bottom left and bottom right cards. By meditating on this force and bringing more of it into your life, you can bring the matter at hand to a swifter conclusion than would naturally occur. Knight of Cups: The essence of water behaving as fire, such as a rushing river: A passionate romantic, full of charm and beauty, but prone to extremes. Forceful idealism blended with gentle kindness. An eager and intense person, forward with their emotions and tender in their support of others.

The ninth and final card, placed in the center bottom of the triangle, represents the final outcome unless you change course. Four of Swords (Truce): A time of tranquility and intellectual repose in the midst of a great struggle. A temporary retreat from stress to regather inner strength, reaffirm convictions, reorganize thoughts, and formulate a new plan. The need for vigilance in a moment of calm. May suggest a withdrawal from the material world to find spiritual guidance.

Withdrawl from the material world to regather inner strength. Maybe I need this, because right now I don't want to do any of it. Not this gig this weekend, not the single, not Truck, not anything.

You're Just Lonely... (and it feels like those around want you to die)

2006-06-16T10:17:00.000Z

Emo, emo, emo post today.

Just been going through another attack of the isolations and the alienations. No particular reason. Just triggered on Tuesday night, by a casual remark that it had been "three months since I last got laid" and the realisation that that makes me kind of... well, funny. The three month mark is where you really start to doubt that you'll ever be in a relationship, or even be randomly fancied ever again. Once you get past six months, it's fine again, it's like a part of your hormonal system just shuts down.

And mostly I'm annoyed with myself, because despite my protestations that I don't need or even want a relationship, I still get those cravings. Not even for sex, but just for the skin hunger. The desire to be held and be holding someone. (Odd, considering my phobia of being touched.) A physical desire, concentrated around the shoulders and the arms, and maybe even the lips - though a wineglass is a poor substitute for a kiss. (Love is like a bottle of gin, but a bottle of gin is not like love.)

It's not helped by the sense that the entire ~~country~~ world seems to be caught up in the twin terrors of That Football Thing and That Reality Programme Thing. So online conversation becomes intensely limited, and it's weird walking through the deserted streets of London feeling like the only person not in the pub shouting at a bunch of overpaid prize steers chasing a black and white ball around a field. Bah.

Been reading again, because it's too hot to do anything else. (Can't even write at the moment, because the laptop just feels like hot coals on my thighs.) Finally finished Charles Fort, slightly disappointed because after his giant lists of anomolies and strangeness, he never seemed to reach a conclusion. The book just ended, after the giant luminescent jellyfish/spaceships in the Gulf. And I'm not sure I understood about his whole philosophical trip. Though it would sound good recited over psychedelic tracks with loads of reverb... heh heh. (I really need to start that heavy, heavy spacerock side project. Though who on earth with?)

Bought a load of popular science books from Blackwells. A book about Hyperspace and transdimensionality by a Japanese mathematician, which looks right up my alley. And Roger Penrose's newer book about consciousness. But instead of diving in, I'm taking a break from all that "masculinity" (I got mistaken for a boy on another messageboard, wah!) by reading The Female Eunuch. I'm not sure if this will cheer me up or make me feel worse.

And now I'm going to put on my headphones, listen to a load of TSM B-sides and Comets On Fire and Boris, and try to get some work done. And not think about the chasm of the weekend yawning ahead. Though I had completely forgotten - I was invited to a Cocktail Party at The Lex's tomorrow night. Can't get too trashed, though, as I'm supposed to be doing the Luxembourg album artwork this weekend. Do no forget!

What Song Do You Want Played At Your Funeral?

2006-06-13T14:52:00.000Z

Wishin' I was skinny
Wishin' that the whole world knew my name
Wishin' I was thrillin',
That I would never be to blame,
Wishin' I was kissin' a girl with lips smooth as pearl,
Wishin' I was pretty,
Wish that I could twist the world round my finger,
Wishin' I had money
Wishin' for the time to spend it all,
Wish that I could wrap the world round my finger,
(but I would always love you,
I guess that would never change.)

-The Boo Radleys

Shimura Frocks

2006-06-12T09:28:00.000Z

Hot, sweaty rehearsal at the weekend, with the sun chasing us across the living room, but we were all wearing pretty summer frocks to beat the heat. Ate ice cream and drank vanilla vodka floats and worked on new songs, which are sounding really, really good. Hurrah!

Artistic differences are funny. I needed to use AMPy's 'puter to listen to the School of Seven Bells stuff because I've not got sound on my computer at work. And about two minutes in, AMP is all "ugh, turn this droney shit off" which annoyed me because I was liking it in a spooky Opal/Espers sort of way, and then she put on "Here I Go Again On My Own" which is, like, the most played song on her iTunes (no, really, I lie - The Postal Service's Phil Collins cover is, like gag me with an emo haircut!) which had me going all "Ack! Ack! Get this fist-pumping soft rock crap off!" But then she messaged me at, like, midnight last night to tell me that Girls Aloud is, like the Best! Thing! Ever! and now she does want to do a mathsrock cover of "Wake Me Up" so everything is groovy that ends groovy. Yeah.

The single is finally finished and (hopefully) turned in. There comes a point where you just have to let it go, and stop working on it. My former art teacher used to tell me "You get a painting to the point where you think it's just ALMOST done, and then you step away from it and call it done." I'm just sick of the sound of it at this point, and never want to hear it again. But hopefully it'll be done in time for Truck now.

Good to rehearse and feel good about the band again, when it all comes together and we sound good. I get so wrapped up in writing and recording and mixing, and start to feel vaguely resentful, like I'm the dogsbody that has to do all the work while everybody else runs around getting laid off the back of it and I never do. :-( Bah. But then I was reading interviews with Xenomania and I decided that in the back room with the boffins was where I'd much rather be.

...and then yesterday was one of those gorgeous days when I didn't have to do ANYTHING. I went to the laundrette super early, then put all my clothes out to dry in the sun, and just lay on the sofa listening to music and writing. And it's moments like those when, despite my whinging about missing "the smell of a boy" that I realise I don't want a boyfriend. I like my freedom. I like being able to go out when I like, and stay home when I like, and not worry about someone else. I tried Noyfriending for a bit earlier this year, but I just didn't see the point. If I wasn't even that into someone to rearrange my schedule to include them, what was the point?

So I write my way through it. This is what I've always done. I was talking to Mela about creativity after a weird exchange on TSM board. I started writing "stories" at the age of 22 (the first time) after the massive nervous breakdown that landed me in jail, rehab, then a mental hospital in quick succession. It wasn't just fantasy and projection, it was a way of trying to work through emotional things I couldn't deal with, in a symbolic setting removed from the situations which were tearing me apart. I've done it ever since, really as a way of "digesting" events I couldn't control or handle. I discovered later that this was what writers like Andre Gide did, they invented a fictional version of themselves in order to explore or kill off aspects of themselves they found harmful.

I always thought this was good for you, both creatively and psychologically, rather than letting it built up and explode and destroy your life. But every now and then I wonder, when your rich fictional life seems more... *real* to you than your real life. Is there a point where literary escapism actually hurts you on an emotional level? I don't mean on that genuinely psycho level where you think your fantasies are real. (I know that it's fiction and have no desire for it to be otherwise.) But I do worry that spending so much time in a world that I have total control over may not actually help me deal with actual IRL friends who are *not* just puppets in a novel I'm writing.

(Though that brings up another kettle of fish - how much *do* you have absolute control over your characters in a novel? Sometimes they're more like children. You give birth to them and you shape them, but sometimes they behave in unpredicable ways that aren't necessarily what your fantasy would have been. When Mela asked "Do you ever write anything that scares you? or think 'whoa, where did that come from'?" my answer is a resounding yes.)

But I suppose, as they say - if you're still worried about losing your sanity, then you are probably still sane. (I've been mad. It doesn't feel like madness. It feels like some kind of preternatural *sense*.)

Das Is Nicht Meine Noyfriend...

2006-06-09T11:30:00.000Z

DAS IS MEINE NEUFRIEND!!!

This picture makes me feel funny all over.

Mix Me, Baby

2006-06-08T12:54:00.000Z

So today, instead of a totally gratuitous picture of Benjamin Curtis, we're going to have a totally gratuitous picture of Ron Asheton.

I finally had a day off yesterday, but instead of sitting in the sun or doing my laundry or anything like that, I spent the day recording guitar tracks and then mixing a final version of Stronger.

I'd been listening to nothing but dronerock and spacerock for weeks. That morning, I was listening to Ron's fine wah-work on the first Stooges record, and chuckling over an interview with Iggy Pop about the mixing of "Raw Power" where he was talking about how it was like a Spinal Tap skit, where he was going "Every channel is up in the red except that one - can we get that one up in the red too?" And I was on the verge of turning Shimura Curves into a full-on Stooges tribute band, when my eyes happened up The Lex's article about Girls Aloud in Plan B.

And he just succinctly managed to encapsulate everything I loved about pop, about bubblgum, about girl groups (especially when contrasted with the indie "oh, bubblegum is so manufactured, you're just pretending to like it" bonehead across the page) that I immediately ran to Woolworths and bought both What Will The Neighbours Say and Chemistry. Yes! Yes! Yes! Soon I was bouncing around the flat like a demented feret to the gorgous tremoloed, phased out guitar riff Wake Me Up and texting the other Shimuras going "See! See! GA are Spacerock after all!"

Anyway, ha-hem. Yes.

Mixing. I hate mixing. No, I have a love/hate relationship with mixing. I'm totally compulsive about it, and can't let anyone else do it, and have to do it until it's done and everything is perfect, but really, it does my head in. Picking through 10 different channels of vocals trying to figure out which exactly one is peaking out on the "F" of "I found out all along..."

::bashes head against mixing desk::

::quickly rushes to repair minute adjustments to EQs ruined by repeated head bashing::

I put on 3 tracks of overlaid pedal madness on the guitar solo of Stronger, dragging out every distortion pedal I owned until it was just ridiculous, over the top, errupting from the top of the track like an ejaculation distortion. Oh yeah, that's what I like. (Though curiously, it wasn't that that peaked out, it was the sodding vocals! Stop singing from the tits, girls!)

Lots of editing to get the vocals even. And 5 different layers of guitar for Mother. It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, sometimes. All these little bits that you know go together, and have to fit in somehow, but trying to get them recorded at levels that don't fry your motherboard and then all in the right place is like some complicated mathematical proof where a mistake in one figure or to much treble on the snare can bring the entire thing crashing down. (Sorry, Benjamin Curtis again: "We kind of think of these first songs like your thesis. You kind of put it out there, and then the rest of the record you spend your time proving it.")

But yeah. I think it's done. Only one or two tiny peaks of about +.03dB but I don't think that's going to tear any holes in the vinyl during the mastering process. Now I just have to listen to it on about eight different stereos to make sure it works.

She's A Model And She's Looking Good

2006-06-06T13:10:00.000Z

Ah, so there's nothing like snapshots to make you totally lose your confidence when you thought you were looking kinda OK from the actual posed photos, but then in the candid pics you just look like a big fat lug with loads of double chins...

Ah well, glory in how nice my pedals look. (Oh yes, and Marianna twirling in the background)

I've come to the conclusion that my band would actually look better if I wasn't in them... I mean, you've got these sassy chiX0rs...

...and then you've got me looking like a big lump. Sigh.

My hair is *so* turning ginger, too.

Yeah. So. Photoshoot on Sunday. I wasn't in the best of moods to start with, having got up at the crack of dawn and dragged myself plus a load of equipment all the way up Archway, only to find out that rehearsal is cancelled and I've got to drag all that equipment back down the hill. Grrrrrr.

Ah well. The studio was beautiful, it was a Proper Photographic Studio with lights and big mirrors and ironing boards and changing rooms with superhot but superglamourous makeup lights. Kinda scary. That's why we're wearing so much slap that looks a bit cheap in outdoor/candid shots but looks great in the actual photos.

It was interesting to see the behind-the-scenes stuff - just how much setup goes into a professional photo shoot, lights and white boards and lighting tests and all that. And Vicki Churchill was fantastic, giving us lots of helpful hints and directions about posing. (She taught us the Heat Magazine pose, which is a guaranteed double chin reducer. Phew!) Unfortunately, this means I am looking over the top of my glasses in all shots - this is for glare elimination, not because I've got some Sexy Librarian thing going on.

We took some Rock Chick poses (where Anna was channeling Shirley Manson). Then we took some cocktail party poses with Tim Ten Yen (where AMP was channelling Jackie O). Then we took some silly shoegazer poses with my pedals (god, I hope those come out) where I thought I was channelling Kevin Sheilds but Brainlove started singing "Smells Like Teen Spirit" grrrrrrr. Then we took some red and black photos (where Marianna was channelling Jayne Mansfield) but by that time, we were all pretty drunk and started lezzing up, feeling each others' tits up and grabbing each other and stuffs - photos we can never use because of err... nipple issues.

It's hard work. No, *really* - it's actually physically quite demanding, striking quite unnatural poses and holding them for 20 minutes at a time while they check the lights and stuff. I've been sore for two days, and would have been worse had it not been for fabulous massage given by Official Band Sister, Lisa.

Poor Vicki - she gave up trying to tell Anna and Marianna and AnneMarie apart and just started referring to us by outfit and hair colour. Not a good day for my fear of turning ginger... I was SURROUNDED by them! At one point, I was standing with two of my ginger bandmates, ginger manager, and then Vicki - also ginger - turned around and I SWEAR TO GOD growled at me. HELP! I think it's catchy.

Anyway, I can't wait to see the finished results.

Chicks Dig Bass

2006-06-02T12:59:00.000Z

An interweb friend of mine said that he would burn me a disc of some SUNN0))) rarities and stuff - little was I expecting TEN DVD-Rs OF DRONEY GOODNESS!!! It's like the Alexandrian Library of drone bands I've heard of, but haven't heard in years, and things I've heard of but never heard, and some stuff I've never even heard of. It's going to take me months to work my way through it, but oh, what funs await.

I listened to two SUNN0))) albums in a row last night, and yeah, I can't be cool and say I've been into them from the start, I've only just started getting into them because the whole Death Metal capes thing put me off. But no, this isn't Art Metal or whatever you want to call it, this is DRONE at its very purest, drone stripped bare down the WUB and the bass vibrations. I had to program a whole new EQ setting on my iTunes in order to properly enjoy it - but still, it just made me wish I had a decent stereo - indeed, any stereo with proper bassbins. My poor neighbours.

I've had this conversation at Morgen und Nite gigs, though... about extreme sound, especially extreme bass. High end too loud is just horrible, tinny and headache-inducing. But full-spectrum bass-heavy wall of sound... there's something so envelopping, so soothing about it. You just want to lie back in the sound and let it wash over you, let it hold you up and support you.

And this shit is as much about the bass as disco or booty-bass or whatever. Low end. Big bottomed girls. Like someone decided to cover "Dreamweapon" solely on bass (no guitars, no drums, no vocals, no distractions, just pure bass drone) and then play it at the wrong speed - 17rpm or something. Monster bass. Gargantuan bass. Bass strings the length of the cables that hold up the Brooklyn Bridge.

Why do GURLZ like bass so much? There was a thread on ILM a while ago, about why there are so many female bass players. I mean, ignoring the obvious stereotype (guitarist or singer decides to start a band - get your bro or your mate to play drums. Who's gonna play the bass? Oh yeah, get yer girlfriend to do it.) LOTS of girls play bass as their perferred instrument.

We started joking about how it's because the actual physical motion of playing the bass (stroking with your fingers) mimicks female masturbation like the left hand work of guitar solos mimics male wanking. Or maybe it's the way that bass vibrations ha-HEM resonate with the feminine AREA. (I mean, who hasn't sat on a spinning washing machine or a bass bin at a club when horny/hard up?) Probably it's more about the way that the bass is the glue that holds music together, but me? I think it's about the bass vibrations. Oh yeah.

Fan Girl

2006-05-31T09:40:00.000Z

I originally posted this on TSM messageboard after some idiot called me a "screaming fangirl" but I thought it beared repeating:

--
Yeah, and I guess I should really say something about this: I was going to say because this board is flooded with fangirls screaming about how hot TSM guys are because the implied casual sexism of statements like this REALLY winds me up.

Maybe I'm oversensitive, but this is the sort of crap I've been dealing with for over 20 years, indie snob boys with their OH NOES!!! GURLZ IN THE TREEHOUSE, OH NOES!!!! attitudes.

I'm not going to go all "Losing My Edge" on you, but I'm a pretty serious music fan. I've been the only girl down the front of a Faust gig, I've dragged my ass to experimental noise gigs in weird basements in Brooklyn and lofts in Stoke Newington, but also reviewed boybands at Wembley. I see my byline in a national music magazine on a regular basis. Do you?

One of the things I love about a really amazing band like TSM is the way that their music can strip away my adult artifice, and let me rediscover the emotion, the immediacy, the openness, the enthuasiasm for music and the world and everything that I had when I was 14. It's not often that I get to feel that way, and I cherish a band that can give that to me.

Problem is, when males retreat to their inner 14 year old, they retreat back to this precious clubhouse mentality of "oh noes, girls are icky, what if my little sister starts liking this, then I won't be COOL any more."

Fuck that shit. Seriously.

Part of the BEAUTY of music, especially rock music, a huge part of its power IS sexuality. If you can't deal with that, then YOU are missing the point. Music is sex and sex is music, feel that beat, move your hips.

TSM are a good-looking band. So were the Beatles. Get over it. The men don't know, but the little girls understand. Grrrrrrrr.
--

I feel like I've been singing the same song for about 20 years now, but fuck it. I'm getting caught up in another fan community, though I swore I wouldn't do that again. But music is a communal experience, you know? It's more fun when the obsession is shared, when you kind of spur one another on to the edge of group hysteria. It's Dionysian, I love it.

I want to pitch an article about TSM to Plan B, but I'm scared. I'm rubbish at pitching. For a start, I know that they're probably a bit "too mainstream". Yeah, fuck that, I get around it by writing "from the heart" and then you can slip in your emotional experiences of Busted or Duran Duran like a sugar bullet in all the Indie. And I'm scared of pitching a "proper article". I did a couple of interviews back in CTCL days, but ET told me I was "clearly uncomfortable on that side of the interview process" and that was the end of that.

But this is the angle I want to take - surprisingly, I don't want to interview them and talk about what specific effects pedal they used to get that guitar solo at around 3:35 on Alone, Jealous and Stoned. What I want to write about is the process of fan community. A lot of bands give lip service using the web to connect with their fans, when what that really means is trying to draft them for street teams. (Which, to me, just gives internet fandom a bad name.) TSM actually seem to post on their own board, interact with their fans, allegedly (though they won't confirm or deny) leak their own albums onto the web when their record company fucks with their release dates.

And, I'm interested in the dynamics of fandom, the way that these little communities coalesce, swell, explode, or diversify. I've been on loads of mailing lists/boards/communities and the dynamics are so familiar I could write a thesis about them. The personal interactions, the shared hysteria, the meet-ups, the orgasm of seeing shows together in a gang. How the issue of celebrity itself can become divisive - those people who profess undying devotion, then stab their own mates in the back for a shot at a backstage pass. And, indeed, the strange breed of Uberfans, those fans who post so much, who travel around the world to see their idols, until they become so familiar within the fan communitity that they are almost celebrities in their own right.

And no, that's not always about sex, groupies or band-aids or whatever the dismissive term for girls who fuck guys in bands is. (Though why is there not a similarly dismissive term for the boywhores in bands who fuck their way through tours? Takes two to tango.) Sexuality is a big part of music, as I rant above, but it's something more... pure than the tawdry aftershow scene.

I don't know. Need to think about this more, formalise my thoughts.

In The 4th Dimension, I'm Walking A Perfectly Straight Line

2006-05-30T13:15:00.000Z

I always feel weird and edgy when we haven't rehearsed in a while. Like the bullshit bits of being in a band outweigh the fun bits, and I start to question if it's all worth it and if I wouldn't just be happier writing bedroom symphonies for myself again. (Is sex really more satisfying than masturbation when you haven't had sex in a while, and can't remember?)

Bit of a rubbish weekend. PMT-ing to hell, and sleep deprivation not a good combination. Spent most of it on the couch, crampy, bleeding and cross, eating chocoalte and writing smut. Didn't do anything I was supposed to do - finish guitar tracks, paint the house, or anything like that. (I found a really funny sample to start Noyfriend, and got some great backwards-wah sounds for it, but that's about as far as I got.)

I'm starting to worry about the amount of smut I've been writing. Most of the time I can kid myself that it's art or self expression or something, and writing is good for you, it's psychologically helpful. But I don't know that it is. It's just this solipsistic escape fantasy that I slip into when the world gets too difficult. I don't even write much about sex any more, it's more about the fantasy of... feeling *loved*. Those tiny day to day moments of intimacy and connection that I miss about a relationship - though a best friend type relationship, as much as a lover. Even though the relationship I'm writing about in this story isn't a normal one, it's conducted through mobile phones and email and blog entries and sporadic bursts of intense physical intimacy that drown in confusion and emotional chaos and insecurity. You know, kind of like real life relationships at the moment.

I got far drunker far more quickly than I intended at AMP's party. Alcohol + Medication usually = sleepy time, which is what happened eventually, but first I went down a weird downward slope. I can remember sitting on the floor, rehashing an argument (a friendly one, though) I'd had earlier with my mum about transdimensionality. My mum said that human beings could not conceive of extra dimensions. I said that's rubbish, maybe we can't visualise them, but there's a lot more to imagination than just the visual aspects. I know that other dimensions could exist because I can conceive of them mathematically, and that's as real a metaphor as any visualisation.

And as I was explaining this, I felt myself disappearing into another plane. No, not literally, but figuratively - an impression not helped by the long, corridor-like setup of AMP's flat. The perspective seemed all wrong, I couldn't connect with anyone, felt myself growing more and more distant from my friends like they were slipping away down the wrong end of a telescope. It's that fear of being unable to connect with people emotionally - not helped by the unexpected appearance of a difficult personal situation. Stuck in the middle of nowhere, after I missed the last train home, too tired and emotional to talk to anyone rationally, feeling isolated and disconnected, but it was too noisy to sleep it off.

No wonder my fantasies aren't of kinky sex any more, but just of emotional connection.

Kate Porn

2006-05-30T11:34:00.000Z

MAJOR KATE-PORN ALERT!!!. Dirty Dronerock Benjamin talks about guitar pedals, maths and everything Kate loves.

We kind of think of these first songs like your thesis. You kind of put it out there, and then the rest of the record you spend your time proving it.

I love him, I love him, I love him. It's not just his amazing guitar playing, his super pedal collection, his pointy nose - it's the random dropping in of references to maths and NASA ("It's just like how NASA gives astronauts those cyanide capsules," group guitarist and vocalist Ben Curtis adds. "Just in case they get lost in space.")

Poll: Should I Get Another Tattoo?

2006-05-26T13:27:00.000Z

I've wanted to get a tattoo of this for about 15 years now. I've loved the band for nearly 20 years. Considering that they've been broken up for so long, I doubt they're going to start sucking or make me hate them any time soon.

But do I really want to put a logo on my body? Even if it's such a cool "pyramid meets the radioactive third eye" logo? Is it pathetic to get a band logo tattoo? What do you think?

Dude, we're all grown ups now...

2006-05-26T11:05:00.000Z

In the end, I went to Sonic Cathedrals by myself last night. I was in a bad mood, and I tried going shopping but I just couldn't find anything I wanted to buy, so I figured walking over to Old Street and then some lovely, lovely shoegazer noise would sort me out. And mostly, it did.

First the good things: Will Carruthers Yes, he's still a handsome man, but that's besides the point. Oh sweet lord, what an amazing DJ set he played. Lots of great drone and shoegaze, but more to the point, he played almost every song that Sp3/Spz ever covered. Marianne, the JJ Cale song that became Run, some Suicide, lots of Velvets (and weird acid house covers of Velvets songs) with bizarre Hunter S. Thompson dialogue over the top. I was so awed, I couldn't even bring myself to talk to him, just kind of smiled at him with this dewey expression of "oh my god, you are one of the best bassists, well, ever."

The High Dials played quite sweet, though rather polite psychedelic pop. (Of course they're polite, they're Canadian, it turns out.) However, at the end, they got the sitar out, and wibbled up a couple of gears. That was bloody impressive.

And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Now look, but Sonic Cathedrals are really starting to piss me off with this kind of thing. Face it - the audience for shoegazing and drone is aging. We're mostly in our 30s now, we all have day jobs and have to get up in the morning. So making us wait AN HOUR AND A HALF between the support band finishing and the headlining band goes on is just not on. I'm tired, I'm hot, my feet hurt, and I can see the band lounging around to the side of the stage chatting with their mates. As the audience grows more disgruntled and aggressive, this is not the best situation for the band. And it's not a fun decision to decide how much of your money's worth to get, as you ponder whether to make the last train and catch exactly 4 songs of the band's set, or stay for the whole set and face the night bus home.

By the time Serena Maneesh came on, I was not in a good mood. They looked, frankly, stupid. An image band gone horribly wrong. Headscarves and frilly shirts and turbans that even Carlos Santana would be ashamed to be seen in, plus a Nico lookalike bassist who hopped about like a mad ferret, in time to no apparent rhythm I could discern onstage.

The sound was awful. It's one thing when it's so loud you can't tell the guitars one from another. It was so loud and just... mushy I couldn't even tell the guitars from the drums. Like they couldn't have spent at least some of that HOUR AND A HALF doing a soundcheck instead of rearranging their scarves to drape exactly the right way? I was so annoyed that I just decided to take off, pushing my way out through the crowd.

And then, just as I got past the bar, I ran into a little gang of my friends. I griped and complained, while Rich tried to explain that it was not the band's fault they'd gone on so late, and Jesse urged me to give them a second chance, explaining that their record really was the lost MBV album. So I stayed for a bit, and ended up closing out the bar. The sound - miraculously - was marginally better, back by the sound booth. And yes, they did settle down from unlistenable mush into kind of metallic sheets of sound. (Though I never did figure out what the violin player was for, as I couldn't hear him at all.) I'll listen to the CD and make my decision based on that.

So, in the end, I guess it was worth the torturous hour and a half night bus home.

Positive/Negative Reinforcement

2006-05-25T17:02:00.000Z

Doodle along with pleasant posts all week, and there's 0 comments.

Say something even mildly critical of your own band, and there's 11 comments in a matter of minutes.

In the meantime, here is a photo of some lovely pointy-nosed Dirty Dronerock Brothers to keep me sweet and even-tempered:

(Photo by Iggyhero.)

Matchy Matchy

2006-05-25T12:27:00.000Z

vs.
OK, these are some random thoughts about band image. They are MY THOUGHTS alone, and not necessarily indicative of the rest of the band. Also, they are MY OPINION and not intended as a dis on anyone else's aesthetic or opinion.

Phew, now that's out of the way...

So we're going to be doing a photoshoot for the upcoming single. Some things have kind of been bothering me, so I want to work out what, exactly.

It was suggested that we pick three different looks/costume changes and try them all out. Immediately, the red/black look of our last gig was suggested. Also, the Cocktail Dresses and Suit look of our i-D shoot. Then I suggested "Hey, remember that gig at Cargo, where we all turned up to soundcheck, by coincidence, wearing these sort of rock chick outfits of jeans, big boots and black t-shirts? That looks really cool."

Now, almost immediately, AMP started complaining saying "But that's SO not my aesthetic" and Anna started trying to substitute a denim miniskirt for jeans, when I protested "Hey, you know, I have to compromise and go onstage wearing things that are SOOO not *my* aesthetic, so why can't you work with this?"

I don't know why, but it irked.

I mean, I just have to get this off my chest. I hate matchy matchy outfits. I just hear that song "We are the Nowtones, we play Top 40, We wear matching outfits, we look real sporty!" in my head. I went to a prep school, I wore a uniform and hated it - it I wanted to wear a uniform as an adult, I'd join the army.

To me, it's much cooler when a band have an *aesthetic*, but don't necessarily wear the same thing. This is why, in the 60s, the Rolling Stones always *looked* cooler than the Beatles. Think the Velvet Underground, The Ramones, The Jesus and Mary Chain.

I guess we're pretty much agreed on that, but the problem is that the other three pretty much share - or at least have an overlapping - aesthetic. That looks like shit on me. I can't stand the colour red. There, I said it. I don't mind burgundy, or dark pinks, but that bright routemaster/pillarbox red is just SOOO not me. And I can't do those 50s style dresses. I look like a man in drag, I feel so uncomfortable. It looks brilliant on them, but I'm just not really sure how I feel about it.

All of the women that are in this band, I asked to be in this band because not just were they musically aware, talented, and dead cool - but also because they had such distinctive and personal looks. Everyone had this very individual and personal style. And now I'm seeing that individuality subsumed in this matchy matchy hell because other people (often men, I notice) seem to be telling us that's what looks good (which I interpret as that's what they like in a girl band.) But, you know, I don't know that *I* like it.

When it comes down to it, I'd rather the diverse individuality of the early Spice Girls to the bland identikit outfits of Girls Aloud. I can remember, back in the late 90s, The Lollies played with an all girl rock band that had a bit of a buzz on, and when they walked in the club they were all wearing jeans and t-shirts, like cool teenage girls, and they looked fantastic. By the time they played, their manager had made them put on these matchy matchy "sexy" outfits that just made them look like Topshop Tramps, and it was just... "Why?!"

I dunno. Maybe this goes along with my own lack of self confidence about my own looks. To be honest, I'd really rather just not do photo shoots, like I don't do interviews. But that would leave me with even less of a say in our visual presentation. Though really, to be honest, I think it's an aesthetics/content issue more than a "oh god, I'm so hideous, why can't we wear things that are flattering to me" issue.

I want us to have a visual impact, I want us to be one of those bands that makes more effort with our presentation, rather than just shuffling on in the same clothes we were wearing on the street, but I guess our point is, we are individuals, why not play up on that, rather than sacrificing it to some aesthetic that's not really *us* (*me*?) anyway?

Another Pointless Survey

2006-05-25T10:25:00.000Z

1. Of all the bands & artists in your collection, which one do you own the most cd's by?
Errrr... probably Spacemen 3. Coincided with both my completist phase and my most gainful employment.

2. What was the last song you listened to?
"Up The Ladder To The Roof" - The Supremes. Oh lord, that wah takes me closer to heaven...

3. What's in your CD player right now?
September 000 by Secret Machines, I think...

4. What is your favourite instrument?
Laptop

5. Who's your favourite local band?
How local is local? Fave London band probably Luxembourgh

6. What was the last concert you attended?
Spiers and Boden at the Spitz

7. What was the greatest concert you've ever been to?
Oh, blimey... what you want me to pick just one? Argh! The Dandy Warhols supporting Blur at Roseland was pretty darn special.

8. What's the worst band you've ever seen in concert?
Top three worst bands I've ever seen:
3. God Is My Co-Pilot - unlistenable art-skronk SHITE
2. She Only Drinks In Manchester - why are you affecting those awful fake English accents and crap baggy beats when you are from TEXAS?!?!?
1. The Strokes - the only band I've ever walked out on twice, on both sides of the Atlantic

9. What band do you love musically but hate the members of?
Eh? I try to separate the two things, because to be honest, most musicians are unbearable pricks.

10. What is the most musically involved you have ever been?
What on earth do these questions mean? Musical high point of my "career" was probably supporting The Bangles at Manchester Academy and Shepherd's Bush Empire

11. What show are you looking forward to?
Truck Festival, because we're playing, ha ha ha

12. What is your favourite band shirt?
Hrrrrrmmm. Possibly the Stooges Funhouse at the Apollo shirt that was personally give to me by Ron Asheton as a thank you for mailing him some... uh... contraband he didn't want to take through American customs.

13. What musician would you like to hang out with for a day?
Professor Sonic Boom and his amazing collection of wubulators. OK, I'm so in awe of him I can never actually speak to him in person, but he's just like a kid in a candy shop with vintage synths and things.

14. What musician would you like to be in love with you for a day?
Duh, Benjamin Curtis, but please can it be more than one day?

15. What was your last musical "phase" before you wizened up?
I don't think I've "wizened" up. I'm still spry. I still go through phases, though they modulate kind of like a sine wave between cheesy pop and nasty drone/psych.

16. Sabbath or solo Ozzy?
Sabbath.

17. Did you know that filling out this survey makes you a music nerd?
Am I supposed to have a problem with that?

18. What was the greatest decade for music?
All of them.

19. What is your favourite movie soundtrack?
Repo Man - totally seminal punk classic.

20. What would you be without music?
Dead. No, quite literally. My life was saved by rock'n'roll.

Secret Folk Shame

2006-05-24T12:54:00.000Z

Last night, Frances and I went to see John & Jon at the Spitz.

Sometimes I feel like folk music is my secret shame, because even my mother begs me "Please don't get into folk music - it was your father's ruin!" However, I spent much of my youth going to the Eighth Step Coffee House and Cafe Lena. This wasn't necessarily by choice - my dad did sound for most of the local folk gigs and festivals, so I'd end up tagging along, sometimes though boredom, more often through wanting a ride home after the local punk rock nightclub had finished.

But still, there was something quite appealing to it, though I'd never have admitted that as a 15 year old Jesus and Mary Chain freak. I loved the participatory nature of the gigs, the DIY aspect - especially at festivals like the Adirondack Folk/Gospel Festival, where a good part of the day would be spent in workshops learning things like shape note harmony. (Lessons which have stayed with me to this day.) I wasn't keen on the "ooh, I'm so sensitive" singer-songwriter type of folkies, but I loved the political ferment, the blood-and-guts sex and death imagery, the "folk tradition" of reinventing meaning of traditional songs for your own generation, and most of all the stomping barndance energy of it.

So it's great to be rediscovering this music as an adult. So I have made a pact with Frances to go and search out more of it, maybe even go to a Morris Dancing Festival!

Anyway, J&J were brilliant. From the records, I was expecting them to be a lot more sparse and minimalist than Bellowhead, but it's amazing the joyful noise that just the two of them manage to kick out. Jon (tall, lanky, somewhat earnest) fiddles his heart out, sings, and stomps on this amazing hollow stomp-box* thing which booms like a bass drum. John (shorter, slightly plump, cheeky grin) whirls about between Melodeon and Concertina and various other squeezeboxes, and adds the spot of harmony vocals.

Despite their exhortations about songs being "reels" and "jigs" and "waltzes" there was nowhere to dance. However, Frances was pleasantly surprised by the body count - we'd had at least three gruesome deaths before we even finished our real ale! There was stomping and singing along - though it turned out that the audience knew the words to "Prickle-Eye Bush" better than the band at this point!

*Yes, you know me, always on about the stomp-boxes!

What's Brown And Sticky?

2006-05-23T10:36:00.000Z

New Shimuras demos, of course! Available on our MySpace.

There will be a prize for anyone who can correctly identify all of the lyrical allusions. (There's at least five I can count, apart from the obvious Mary Chain riff.)

Give me a Reason to love you...

2006-05-22T12:37:00.000Z

What a productive weekend!

On Saturday, I went round Miss AMP's in order to give her the lesson in using Reason that I've been promising her for months. So I took her through its paces, and showed her loads of shortcuts. I just hope that I didn't go too fast because I get so excited when I use Reason that I'm always all "Look, you can do this! And then this! and wow, this sounds great..." and away I gallop while my pupil is still going "wait, what the fuck is Portamento?"

Half of the knowledge I have, I have no idea where I've picked it up over the years. I've taken two courses at University (one in Electronic Music, and the other in Studio Technology) but didn't make it to the end of either. Mostly it's just gleaned from mucking about (and fucking things up) myself, or else reading Sound On Sound while waiting in recording studios.

Anyway, she picked it up really quickly, and away she went with Disco Drums and cello samples and Duran Duran sounding synths. Hurrah! That's the nice thing about Reason - it is so user friendly to get started on.

But a stray comment just got me thinking (oh, what else is new?) - she was joking around, going "Yeah, it's easy to write a song on Reason, but it's not easy to write a song like Stronger." And I turned around and said "No, not really, there's no difference."

...and I wasn't being self depreciating or falsely modest or anything like that. It's hard to explain. Writing songs is easy, fullstop. They just flow, it just happens. And I have no way of telling, as I'm writing a song, if no one will like it and it's going nowhere, or if it's going to turn into a monster anthem that people want to release as a single. In fact, often the harder it is to write a song, the less 'good' it is.

The melody for Stronger had been kicking around my head for ages. Originally it was just a riff, with nonsense words like "She's coming on, banging on like a Venus in polyester..." but it wasn't until I had a massive row during my breakup with the Unemployed Artist Loser (sorry, I love my acronyms) that it came together. I had something I started to say to him - that for the first bit of our relationship, he had supported me, emotionally, and he had been solution to a lot of my problems. But for the rest of the relationship, he *became* my biggest problem. And he got so fixated on the whole first half of that statement (going on and on about how much effort it had taken for him to be supportive of me, and how I should be "grateful" or something) that I never got to the second bit, which was the important bit.

The next morning, I was on the bus to work - I can remember rounding the corner of Kennington Park - with this whole argument stewing in my head, and the lyrics just popped into my head. It was my way of finishing the argument, of saying what I needed to say. I bashed the melody out on Reason the next day, added some orchestral arrangements and it was finished by the weekend. Like I always say, writing songs isn't hard at all - it's living through the experiences that give you the ideas for songs that is the hard part.

Anyway, I demoed some songs on Sunday. Had loads of fun with the new pedals - in fact, I fear I may have overdone the wah, since it's the new toy. Still, I think it sounds good. I'll post Just Like Friends (total JAMC pastiche) and the infamous, long-threatned Brown And Sticky (utter filth, Missy Elliott meets Dandy Warhols) to MySpace if I can figure out how to rip MP3s on this crap work computer.

Vague Musings About "PC"

2006-05-19T17:16:00.000Z

Maybe I should have posted this on ILX, where the argument started, but I just don't feel like revealing my soft, white underbelly in such an adversarial hellhole.

Thread started by some jerk saying that anyone who objects to potentially racially offensive comments is a PC-Nazi. Cue typical ILX beatdown, but then someone steps up with an salient and pithy story which basically knocks seven shades of shite out of the original poster. However... he kind of diminishes his point by calling the protagonist of his story "Special Ed". When I object and say "actually, you've kind of invalidated your point by using such a loaded term which is derrogatory towards the disabled", black dude turns around and effectively calls me a PC-Nazi by saying I'm guilty of what first jerk is complaining about for "missing the point of the story because I'm so blinded by a term". Like, dude, would you have been able to see the point of the story if the epithet was "Nigger"?

Yeah, I know, Race is the Elephant In The Room on ILX and I've spent my whole life being told by various people that whatever -ism I'm complaining about (sexism, homophobia, discrimination against the disabled) is just not as Urgent and Key as Racism, like a Huge Wrong makes a Not-So-Huge Wrong "Right" or something. (Instead of the idea that it's ALL symptomatic of the same white, male, middle-class, heterosexual entitlement bullshit*, and while we divisively tie our hands by arguing about it, they shaft us even harder up the ass. (No Boris jokes, please!))

But what irks me is this idea that I'm objecting to the term "Special Ed" because of some kind of PC-Nazism. Spend a high school semester on the BO-tard** Bus, going to school at the adolescents' wing of the local mental hospital because you've had a nervous breakdown, and see how sensitive you become to terms like "Special Ed" and "Sunshine Coach" and yeah, even "BO-tard".

I know I kid around all the time about mental illness - we all do. I use phrases like "nutter" and "mentalist" and "psycho" with abandon, sometimes even with affection. Sometimes it's a defense mechanism.*** Sometimes it's a lazy way of saying "wanker". Is this really any more acceptable than using "gay" or "retarded" as an insult? Is it PC-Nazi to care?

Or is it hypocritical to use these terms when you have been fighting for recognition that mental illness is as much as "disability" as anything else? (Disability in this case meaning something you didn't choose and don't necessarily have any control over, so therefore workplaces, educational facilities, etc. should make an effort to provide concessions or support to enable you to do your job/study/whatever in spite of it.) I'm losing the plot and this is turning into hand-wringing.

I guess I should just strive towards more accurate speech. Even in flamewars. Anyway, 20 anonymous comments by Monday...

*And no, sorry, being 3 out of those 4 options does not invalidate my opinion, thanks.

**Very localised Upstate NY insult there, from BOCES, technical and vocational training (stereotypically often given to those of less than average IQ or income) as an alternative and/or supplement to higher education

***There but for the grace of god, go I, etc.

Sometimes I Think I Can Fly

2006-05-19T09:11:00.000Z

This morning, my favourite weather, blustery, bit of mist but not full-on rain, standing on the train platform with the wind whipping my hair into a Pre-Raphaelite birdsnest, I stood on my tip-toes, my nose into the wind, arms outstretched, and almost thought that the wind would carry me up, up, and away, soaring over London like a bird, or Mary Poppins...

I Love My Wah

2006-05-18T12:55:00.000Z

Ohmigod, I love my wah.

Last night, after dinner, I hooked up all of my pedals... OK, not all of my pedals because I don't actually have enough guitar cables to hook them all up, let alone power supplies. I hooked up about six of my pedals, and played around with the new V-Wah. In order - two distortion pedals (overdrive set to mild crunch, Big Muff set to SUPERFUZZ), phaser, wah, delay... OH EM EFFIN' GEE.

Wah is one of those things that it makes quite a difference which way around you have the order. This is a trick that Jo from Happy Hollisters taught me - it' makes the difference between sounding like "a room with a wah in it" or "a WAH with a room in it." Clearly, I prefer the latter.

I can tell that this is something I am going to have to practise - and possibly find some kind of support, to keep me from developing RSI in my ankles. It's kinda tricky, synching up your fingers and legs. I mean, this is the reason I was never a good drummer - I just can't get my limbs to operate separately, rhythmicly.

Ooh, hurrah, just got offerer another gig. Must cut short my pedal joy.

An Evil Plan - Do You Dare Me?

2006-05-17T17:22:00.000Z

From something going on on another thread... when oh when will some enterprising soul come up with the idea of the Dirty Dronerock Gigalo? There is a hole in the prostitution market here.

-- masonicboom, May 17th, 2006 4:13 PM.

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Where there is a hole, someone will use it.

-- mark grout, May 17th, 2006 4:23 PM.

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DDR gigolos are widespread! no job + band + lanky = seeks employed, doting girlfriend to support until she can't stand it anymore (and/or he gets chubby.)

-- yuengling participle, May 17th, 2006 4:28 PM.

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Maybe I should take out an ad or something. I've never had much luck, even with those sorts of situations.

-- masonicboom, May 17th, 2006 4:36 PM.

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Hrrrrmmmm. What's the address for Craigslist again?

"Fat, ugly, minging, middle aged yet independently wealthy rock chick seeks pointy-nosed dirty dronerock boy to live in her house, leech off her and service her Big Muff. Please provide photos of Nose, Hair, Ass and Shoes."

Heh heh heh. What kind of replies do you think I'd get?

-- masonicboom, May 17th, 2006 4:43 PM.

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Including or excluding DJ Martian?

-- Matt DC, May 17th, 2006 4:45 PM.

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I'm actually tempted to do it with a fake email address, just to post the replies to ILX. Heh heh heh, is that evil?

-- masonicboom, May 17th, 2006 4:46 PM.

New (Boots and) Pedals!

2006-05-17T12:59:00.000Z

OK, there's a lot to be said for finding a good musical equipment shop - especially one that's really close to your house. Hence why this post is going to be full of gushing admiration for Gig Sounds of Streatham. A good shop, staffed by friendly, helpful staff who are knowledgeable but also actually genuinely enthusiastic about the gear they are selling.

Now, normally I find going to musical equipment shops a cross between a wet dream and a nightmare. A wet dream, because of the profusion of stuff on offer, but a nightmare because it's almost impossible to get the arrogant, self important staff to pay attention to you - ESPECIALLY if you are female. I swear to god, this makes you invisible in most major music outlets, on both sides of the Atlantic. To the point where I've been tempted to shoplift, because I swear the staff would just see a guitar floating out the door under its own volition.

Gig Sounds, however - I didn't even have to go on the hunt - a young man actually interrupted his phone call to help me. Although they didn't have exactly what I wanted, he suggested an alternative, and not only ordered the desired pedal but then set one aside and ACTUALLY CALLED ME to let me know that it had come in.

When I dropped by to pick it up, he enquired as to my other pedal needs. Not in a "ooh, let me push more stuff on you" sort of way, but in a "Hey! You mentioned Electroharmonics last time - our entire range is 30% off this week!" Unfortunately, they didn't have anything I didn't already have (heh) but we got to talking about envelope filters (Moogerfoogers in specific) and he was all "Ooh, have you heard the Boss V-Wah?"

He wouldn't let me leave the store without trying it - set it up and oh my god, I fell in love at first listen. It's a wah modelling pedal which you can program to emulate anything from a Vox to a Crybaby to even a Talkbox. It does Cream style WOCKA-WOCKA, it does Virgin Prunes "make your guitar sound like a sitar" it does that My Bloody Valentine "Ssssshhhhh-grrrrrrrrr-ssshhhhhhhh" and even Stooges/Dino Jr "WEEEEOOOOOOWWWW-WUBBA-WUBBA-WEEEEEEEE".

I was in love. I had to have it.

And then the bit I hate - the bargaining. You never know if you're supposed to haggle, or if they'll be insulted, or what. I just kind of hemmed and hawed about my mortgage and he just said "Fuck it, I'll work out the deal" and that was that. (Very nice, too!) And then... as I was asking about power supplies (these things can always knock on another £20 onto your pedal purchases) he actually told me something I didn't know - about daisy chaining Boss pedals together, so you only need to buy one adaptor for all of them - which actually saved me money. Ker-CHING!

So I've got me some brand new toys to play with, and Dan at Gig Sounds, you have got yourself a customer for life. WUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUB

How Does It Feel To Gaze At Your Shoes?

2006-05-16T13:19:00.000Z

Much better photos, thanks to the lovely folks at How Does It Feel. More what I *thought* we looked like.

Ten Years Ago

2006-05-16T11:29:00.000Z

OK, I'm not allowed to do MySpace Surveys any more, so sorry, Dare, I'm putting it on my blog.

-----

Ten years ago, it was 1996. Take this survey, post the results, and see how many things have changed since then.

1) How old were you?
THEN: 1996 - 22 for the uh... fourth time
NOW: 2006 - 30 for the uh... can't remember which time any more, senility kicking in

2) Where did you work?
THEN: 1996 - Tending databases and analysing Mortgage Backed securities for US Select Management

NOW: 2006 - Tending databases and analysing Mortgages for an Independent Financial Advisory service

3) Where did you live?
THEN: 1996 - LIC, Queens with Kaliflwr in shared 2 and a half bed apartment

NOW: 2006 - Own my own one-bed flat in Streatham, London

4) How was your hair style?
THEN: 1996 - Short blond fringey bowl cut
NOW: 2006 - Long, scraggly light brown/dark blonde usually in a bun

5) Did you wear contacts?
THEN: 1996 - god no
NOW: 2006 - still go no

6) Did you wear glasses?
THEN: 1996 - yes. Little gold rimmed specs
NOW: 2006 - chunky turqoise indie glasses

7) Who was your best friend?
THEN: 1996 - Kaliflwr
NOW: 2006 - Probably my bandmates

8) Which of your pets were still alive?
THEN: I didn't have any pets of my own, but I lived with Blixa, Milo and Brandy (cats)
NOW: 2006 - No pets. :-(

9) Who was your boyfriend/girlfriend?
THEN: 1996 - A rotating cast of dirty rock boys
NOW: 2006 - purely imaginary

11) Who was your celebrity crush?
THEN:1996: Alex James
NOW: 2006: Benjamin Curtis

12) Who was your regular-person crush?
THEN: 1996 - Sanford Santacroce... Swoon!
NOW: 2006 - Don't really have one any more.

13) How many piercings did you have?
THEN: 1996: Four? Two in each ears
NOW: 2006: The same

14) How many tattoos did you have?
THEN: 1996: 1
NOW: 2006: 1

15) What was your favorite band/singer?
THEN: 1996 - Spiritualized, Blur, Dandy Warhols, Stereolab
NOW: 2006 - SHIMURA CURVES!!! (heh)

16) Had you smoked a cigarette?
THEN: occasionally but either cloves or "jazz" cigarettes
NOW: NEVER

17) Had you gotten drunk?
THEN: 1996: When was I ever sober?
NOW: 2006: On meds, can't really drink much

18) Looking back, are you where you thought you would be in 2006?:

Right city, I'm glad I'm back in London. House-buying and Proper Job is pretty cool. I got to do the Rock Star thing for a while but hey, it was fun while it lasted even if I never got on TOTP or in Smash Hits. I did think I'd be married to a shoegazing guitarist or Turner Prize-Winning Artist by now, though. That's the only disappointment.

How Does It Feel To Be Loved?

2006-05-12T17:56:00.000Z

I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, but I just want to get down my impressions of the gig while it's still fresh in my mind.

First off, it was an absolutely gorgeous day - the sun was shining, the birds were singing - so even though I arrived two hours before the soundcheck, I sat in the sun and gossiped with Stars of Aviation and Irene. What friendly bands! This was possibly the nicest thing about the evening - the mutual support and admiration and general goodwill between all of the bands involved. (Also, there's really nothing I like better than hanging around with a gang of hott indie boys, but hey, that's just me.)

The other Shimuras straggled in at various increments of lateness, but I was in too good a mood to be bothered. Marianna was full of joy, having just come back from seeing Take That the night before, so we watched the videos on her camera and squealed with girly joy. However, soundchecks started so late and took so long that we had to dress and warm up before we got one! Plus, they had already started letting people in by the time we soundchecked! Eep! for people thinking we had started when we hadn't and resulting technical difficulties.

Anyway, we had just enough time to touch up our makeup and get some wine before shuffling to the stage - however, terrifyingly enough, we emerged from the ladies' loo to find that the entire Windmill was SO PACKED we could barely make it to the stage. Blimey!

I wasn't that nervous. It's weird when you're not nervous, because you don't get that adrenaline rush and that WHEEEEEEEE!!! when you finally go on. I was just trying to concentrate on playing guitar perfectly (least flubs of any performance yet, of which I am quite proud.) The girls danced from the very start, perfectly poisted and well synchronised. So much for "post pub chaos" (I think the early hour and the sobriety may be responsible.) John Brainlove was filming the whole thing which I found slightly off-putting, as he was on my side of the stage, and I was convinced the whole thing was going to be just one continuous shot of my giant ass. :-(

Between song banter was greatly cut, as we shifted professionally from one song to the next with minimal faff (though the best WTF? moment was when Anna started spouting something about drinking ourselves to death like Dylan Thomas (?) but we're getting used to Anna's endearing ramblings onstage). And for the first time ever, I managed to remember all of the words to Elephants! (Which we followed with Capture The Castle - geddit? ha ha, Elephant and Castle? Heh. OK, I'm easily amused.)

We were a bit pressed for time, so we ended up not being able to debut PWNED live, which was a bit of a shame. But we more than made up for it with the most DRONETASTIC* version of Noyfriend yet. Lots of people say this is fast becoming our best song live, and I tend to agree. I need to write more songs where I get to cut loose and actually play mental pedaled-out space guitar.

The girls helped clear up the gear, which really helped me not get stressed, and avoided a repeat of the last gig's mood-drop. Plus the crowd were so receptive. Lots of people kept stopping me and telling me what a good show it was, which is always nice to hear, especially if you feel like you've put on a good performance.

Sat outside and gossiped with Anton who I used to be in Fugue State with a million years ago, back in NYC. Anton's an amazing musician, and a fantastic songwriter - I learned so much from him back in the day - so it was great to have him there, especially since he was quite complimentary. He's someone whose opinion I really value and whose judgement I trust.

The gig was so crowded and the sound so quiet that I didn't get to hear much of the other bands, much to my dismay, as they'd sounded amazing at soundcheck. Stars of Aviation impressed me with their bassoon and the little late medieval baroque interludes. We decided that there should be more basso continuo in pop. Mon Fio had an actual VIBROPHONE onstage - kudos to them for dragging the thing about in the back of a cab. And Irene were fun, joyful Californian style (by way of Sweden) sunshine pop. Though I still don't know how they got all 8 of them up on that tiny stage.

Got paid properly (!!!!) and drank way too much wine out in the garden (while AMPy flirted with groupies - yes! we have groupies now! Hurrah!), hence the hangover and wretchedness today. But I've been in the best mood all day. Even the awful fatness of myself in the photos and videos could not put a damper on the proud sense I have that "yeah, we done good!"

Oh yes, and we got invited back to do a Pre-Truck BBQ with Piney Gir in July. Can't wait.

*Yes, there's always been a spacerock element to our music, etc....

Reality Bites Hard

2006-05-12T11:56:00.000Z

Ah, the gulf between imagination and reality.

What I felt I looked like last night:

What I actually looked like last night:

Sigh. Somewhere inside me, my inner DDB struggling to get out, but he's drowned in the sea of bloating booze. Ah well.

Great gig last night. Longer description and more comments later, when my hangover wears off a bit...

Ha Ha I'm Drowning

2006-05-10T12:32:00.000Z

Well, I've always had somewhat of a fetish about putting Dirty Dronerock Boys in bathtubs. So, shirtless, scuba diving DDB's - so close and yet so far. Now if only someone could arrange to have him put in a shopping cart, please.

(Yes, I am bored off my tits at work, why do you ask? I've got a to-do list a hundred yards long, but no one is responding to my queries about the report requests. My life is so much easier since I Officially Stopped Caring, but then again, it's kinda dull, too.)

Vote! Vote! Vote! For my Pirate Type...

2006-05-10T11:21:00.000Z

What kind of pirate am I? You decide!
You can also view a breakdown of results or put one of these on your own page!
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

Yarr. Ye won't be taking no liberties with the female buccaneer. Truly a bastion of feminism, ye woman pirate will seize ye gold, cut off ye genitals and wear them as a necklace, all before her morning grog. Empowering. Yarrr.

Pure Filth

2006-05-10T09:20:00.000Z

This is REALLY disgusting, so please be warned, do not read it if you are easily disturbed or offended. CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED.

OK, I don't know what's going on. I know that SSRI's give you incredibly vivid dreams, but last night I had the MOST graphic sex dream about everyone's favourite Tory, Boris Johnson. And I mean *graphic*. Errr... Blimey! It's not even night you get sodomised by MPs, even in your dreams. I'm not having beans again for supper any time soon.

Gratuitous Picture Of Owen Pallett Dressed As A Victorian Chimney Sweep - SORRY! - Cobbler

2006-05-09T11:43:00.000Z

You know, just *because*.

(Thanks, Frances, you have made my day!)

"Play Loud"

2006-05-09T10:17:00.000Z

I hate bands that put this on their records. I prefer instructions like Sonic Boom's "Play twice before listening".

I am going to put "Play at a reasonable volume, be considerate of your neighbours. Use headphones if necessary." on the Shimuras album.

Oh Yeah, The Band

2006-05-08T13:33:00.000Z

Sorry, I've been blogging the pain away all week, going on and on about that boy* at great length that I haven't written a thing about my own band recently.

Rehearsal was at my house this week. Which was good, because it meant that I got to do a dress rehearsal with pedals and all. Anna (I think?) said that she forgot how different we sounded with electric guitars - yeah, there's always been a spacerock element to our music**.

We ran through our set twice - including new song! Hopefully we should have PWNED ready for HDIF on Thursday, with mad Shampoo harmonies and kickboxing and all. Then we had yummy curry and drank a couple of bottles of pink wine, and ran through the set again - Emsk, our manager, says that we are actually better after we've had a glass of wine. We get FANTASTIC by the start of the second glass, then there's a steady downward slope. From the dead bottle count the next morning, we drank at least 5 and two half bottles of wine***, so I fear what we may have sounded like by the end.

I'm kinda excited about the gig now. Just have to remember to hit the pedals in the right places, and manage to sing the Noyfriend harmony and play the new Noyfriend riff at the same time. Yeah.

*No, not that boy, the other boy. As in, well, That Boy. Or... erm, actually, even I'm confused at this point. Where's my meds?

**Anna has been teasing me that I am just like The Lex, and redefine any music that I like as Spacerock and/or Dronerock. This is because while at Ed's house at the weekend, he put on some Hawkwind. Now it was a quite folky, hippyish song (Carry On Sundown) but still - it is Spacerock because, well, Hawkwind *invented* Spacerock! Humph!

***Anna got so drunk so couldn't stand up, and actually *fell* into my bathtub.

Also, While We're On The Subject Of Shoes...

2006-05-08T12:56:00.000Z

My shoes are, like, Famous Now.

Too bad I'm wearing my engineer's boots to the show on Thursday. Not in any way inspired by the boots below, oh no, not me, of course not.

More Lust - Boots & Pedals

2006-05-08T12:37:00.000Z

I don't even know what half of those are! Wah pedals, volume pedals, nice octave generator there. Bah. I slimmed down my pedal collection, partly due to the theft last year, and partly due to having too much to carry around, but my god this makes me long for the good old days when I wouldn't be caught dead in public without at least 7 pedals. But that was when I was running two stereo amps through a tremolo/pan, and they had to have different series for different sounds...

Just another shot of those boots, I love them so much. HOTT!

About the boots...

2006-05-05T17:06:00.000Z

I take it all back.

Could that boy's jeans be any tighter? I'm actually distracted from the pedals.

Blimey, I think I'm having a hot flash. It must be the menopause!

Are Release Dates Meaningless?

2006-05-05T12:10:00.000Z

This started as a comment I was leaving on Mela's Blog About Leaked Albums but it soon became an epic, so I decided to give it my own post here.

It's started to really fuck me off, with YSI and downloading, that release dates seem to have been rendered meaningless.

Firstly, because I am a musician, and you want to make sure that people have the proper, finished article - you don't want to be judged on some shitty, unfinished, unmixed version of a song. (Though lord knows how many different Shimuras demos there are floating around out there.) I don't think that's precious, I think it's the fundamental nature of being an artist. Yes, those songs may have been floating around live for ages, but live performances and recordings are two different artforms.

And I understand, from my brief time as a journalist, about just how long lead times for reviews, articles and other press aspects are. This is the number one thing that fuels release schedules, especially for smaller artists that *need* the exposure.

But mainly, it's about my experiences as a fan. A couple of years ago, it seemed like all my friends were working for record companies or PRs, so I would have every album months before it came out. In some cases, I got rough mixes off the band themselves. At first this was very exciting, that feeling that I HAVE SOMETHING REALLY SPECIAL AND THIS MAKES ME IMPORTANT BECAUSE I'VE HEARD IT FIRST. But the problem was, I couldn't discuss it with anyone, I couldn't share my joy because no one had the faintest clue what I was on about, or if they did, they just thought I was boasting.

And by the time the album actually came out, and all the fans were talking about it, I felt like I could no longer join in the excitement, because it was all already familiar, even old to me. I made a decision just not to listen, just not to seek advance copies out.

But these days, with album leaks all over the internet, it's almost the exception that people hear that album for the first time on the day it's released or after. Discussion on interweb boards and the like takes place months in advance of when I get to hear the record. The Secret Machines album Mela mentions was a case in point - the leak was all over I Love Music, the dronerock kids were discussing it, but I still hadn't heard it. I kept going to record shops, looking for it and expecting it to be there. By the time it came out, it was almost an anticlimax. And the album is a grower, it's not an instant download hit, which needed repeated listenings and mulling on it, and letting the songs get stuck in my head. My comments and attempts at discussion fell on deaf ears, because they'd moved on to downloading whatever else was next. I was the lonesome cowboy because all the other kids on the block were playing spacemen (to quote the Beano).

To be honest, maybe this is because I'm not much of a downloader*. It's not even because of the "music should be free"/"support the artists" debate. Part of it is because my only internet access is on a work 'puter with no speakers. Part of it is because I don't like the way MP3s sound - all tinny and pixilated. And a big part of this is because I'm just so attached to the fetishistic idea of a record as an ARTEFACT, an object - music and pictures and cover art and liner notes.

(*I'm secretly a bit of a luddite. I don't even own an iPod.)

I Am So Bored

2006-05-05T12:03:00.000Z

Friday afternoon disease, innit?

There is a magic bean out of Arabia...

2006-05-05T09:46:00.000Z

It's Friday, which means I get to have coffee today. Hurrah! If I cannot give up my vices entirely, I will assign them to various days of the week. Friday is coffee day. Saturday is drinking day. Sunday is... errr... lying in bed with a hangover wishing that the Refuge Temple Church across the road would stop Praising The Lord for just a little while - I mean, surely The Lord deserves a lie-in on Sunday morning like everyone else? Even my mum agrees that He must get sick of all the Hallelujahs sometimes.

I woke up early this morning and decided to go for a walk while it was still cool enough to do so. Partly this is my "get healthy" trip, wanting to stop huffing as I walk up stairs/hills (oh yeah, not helped by finding an old photo of what I used to look like when I walked 4 miles a day) and partly this is trying to stimulate the serotonin in mine own brain.

I'm starting quite gently, just puffing up Sunny Hill (man, is that a hill! Even the Sutton Loop decided to go under it rather than over or around) and then back down Wellfield Street. I had forgotten how beautiful my neighbourhood is - it was one of the reasons I bought this house in the first place. "Streatham Village" apparently, though no one calls it that except Estate Agents and The Guardian. Lots of cute little cottages, slightly older than the usual Victorian rowhouses - that's what my house must have looked like before the addition of the shopfront windows. I must get myself to the library and investigate the history of my hood. Especially with an intriguing name like "Wellfield Street" - it's a low-lying road between the two spurs of (I assume chalk) hills, so I imagine it would get a lot of seepage - perhaps even feed the River Graveney? Ah, the mind boggles...

Great Taste In Pedals!

2006-05-04T15:41:00.000Z

Not so great taste in footgear.

Signs of Summer

2006-05-04T12:46:00.000Z

1) A homeless guy in Covent Garden just asked me to marry him. Well, at least someone wants to!

2) I start the seasonal transition from Goth to Hippie.

Now a big part of this transition involves digging out The Pink Floyd. Except, bah! I dug through my CD collection and realised that I no longer had a copy of The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn in this country. Which is absurd - I've no idea how many copies of this album I've gone through. My first was home taped (!) off a friend, with Relics on the back. My second was a proper, storebought cassette. My third was a brand spanking new shiny LP, when I got my first turntable. My fourth was a second hand copy I bought at an indie record store after a squabble with my then housemate about whose copy was which. This one got a "K" worked into the paisley of their shirts.

Which makes this my fifth. £16.99 at HMV. Crikey! Does Roger Waters need another wing on his mansion or something?

There are few albums I've had to buy this many times. Most of them are replaced through format changes. A few (Psycho Candy, Laser Guided Melodies) just got played until they wore out. Others (Isn't Anything, Dandys Rule, OK) got lent to friends and never returned.

Piper At The Gates Of Dawn is special. I spent most of my teenage years *hating* Pink Floyd. It was what the Kids Who Used To Beat Me Up In High School listened to. Once, when the local high school was vandalised, the New Scotland sheriffs hauled me down to the police station to interrogate me. "What kind of music do you listen to?" Good Cop asked, conversationally. "Stuff you've never heard of!" I scowled back. "Sonic Youth, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Husker Du..." Bad Cop cut in, "So not Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, then?" The look I gave him must have frozen his blood, not just aesthetic disdain, but realising that they'd thought that *I* had daubed these logos on the locker room walls.

It wasn't until a bit later that the cool kids - the stoner kids - discovered a use for me. I was straight edge - I barely even drank, let alone smoked or took drugs - but they would always ask me to come hang out with them. Why? Because I was the ultimate trip toy! They'd stick me in a corner of the room, and I'd start spouting nonsense about astronomy or bawdy tales from Suetonius' Twelve Caesars, or explain the roots of The Lord of the Rings in Scandinavian Mythology, and they'd sit there and go "DUDE!!! That is SOOOO far out!"

...and then someone stuck on Interstellar Overdrive or Astronomy Domine or something. I was mesmerised. It was the same dissonant, hazy psychedelia that I was loving in bands like JAMC and Love & Rockets. The a-ha moment of "so *that's* where they got it!"

I've never been without it since.

To Pod Or Not To Pod

2006-05-03T17:32:00.000Z

For recording purposes, only. I'm so dissatisfied with the distortion options on Cubase, yet I can't get a good distorted tone on my guitar going direct through the mixing board. I can't blast my AC-30 and mic it, because of my neighbours.

The only time I've ever been close to one was when I was roadie-ing for Slumber Party, and they did a Capital Radio session. They sure sounded purrrrrty through them.

If we're going to be recording an entire album in my living room, I need the right equipment. They seem to be hovering about £125. I could save that easily if I gave up drinking for a month. Couldn't I?

Our New Look, Ladies...

2006-05-03T11:21:00.000Z

Psychedelic Cowgirl!!!

There's Always Someone Somewhere With A Big Nose, Who Knows

2006-05-03T09:09:00.000Z

I've been walking around, trailing my bad mood like a poisonous miasma lately. No more dwelling. Transcending.

I finally got a decent night's sleep last night, by moving my pillows and sleeping at the other end of the bed. Fell asleep reading Nelson and dreamed about finding lost editions of Blake books, with gorgeous plates.

I've been reading Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton on the train this week, as a break from all the maths. I'd already figured out the plot by about a third of the way through - Ackroyd plot twists stop being a surprise after you've read a few of his books. But still, his books are so dense and so layered and so packed with tiny factoids about London, and brilliant throwaway one-liners that it's still a joy to read. It's not about time travel - no, that would be cheap and tawdry and science fiction - or ghosts, but some kind of overlapping palimpsest view of past and present and future where everything in all timelines coexists in a place. (Stop me if this is starting to sound like quantum physics again.)

The book itself is about plagiarism and forgery and the nature of originality in creative works. I mean, what do I know about that? I nick riffs off every piece of music I've ever listned to, but then people go "Oh, that sounds just like Band X!" when I snigger myself rotten because it's actually a straight copy of Band Y. But that's the way music (oh, and scientific theory, too, while we're at it) grows, a little borrowing, a little tinkering, a little offshoot and growth and there you go.

Good Taste In Guitars

2006-05-02T14:04:00.000Z

Not so good taste in hats.

Oh, The Hilarity

2006-05-02T11:45:00.000Z

So, apparently, "Pipette" is French Slang For Blowjob. Who knew?

Triangulation and Discourse

2006-05-02T11:04:00.000Z

Yeah, I know that this is what some people hate about the blogosphere, that Blogger A says something, then Blogger B says something about that, and Blogger C writes about that, and then it turns into an endless recursive Borges nightmare, but honestly, been having some really interesting Discourse With Mistress La Spliffe about weight issues, the nature of desire and how the advertising industry fucks us up.

I'll admit it - *everyone* in this band seems to suffer from some kind of weight related image issues. Which is a bit of a WTF?

But I've been thinking more and more about these two (perhaps erroneous) sets of assumptions associations. Everybody wants to be loved, right? But 1. In order for a woman to be loved, she has to be pretty. And 2. In this society, in order to be pretty, she has to be thin. Double whammy - I ate myself and I want a pie becomes I hate myself and I want to die.

Anyway, read the post and the comments.

Cute Boy Radar - 01/05/06

2006-05-01T14:07:00.000Z

Benjamin Curtis

Guitar wizard and pedal freak for dirty dronerock hotties, Secret Machines, known for their penchant for playing ten minute prog rock epic masterpieces about angels and robots fighting at the apocalypse. Or, erm, something like that - lyrically quite dense and quite hard to interpret in there, but WHO CARES with those crazy psychedlic guitar pyrotechniques?

The Planet's More Fucked Up Than I'll Ever Be

2006-05-01T10:44:00.000Z

Yeah, so I've been going with my "fuck the world" kind of a mood and listening to nothing but the Jesus and Mary Chain and Secret Machines for several days now. There's something about the relentless Scots miserablism married to the dirtiest, sexiest music ever that really makes me... well, not happy. But contented, in that Nico sort of "I'm only ever truly happy when I'm unhappy" way.

Rehearsal was fucking brilliant, which helped. I took my barebones sketch of a JAMC ripoff song ("Just Friends") and started playing it around the living room table as we drank, and next thing I knew, we were *jamming*! No, really! As evidenced by this picture... tee hee. No, actually we were vocally freestyling - I'd sing and play the riff, and everyone else would riff off me, twining their voices round each other, like a musical conversation - which is the *good* kind of jamming, as opposed to the wanky kind.

The song is good and nasty and bitter - inspired by recent events, but more about every disappointment, every stupid line boys use that Kaliflwr and I used to collect in a book when we were younger. (Yeah, the same book that provided half of Imajinary Boyfriend.) But it's also joyous and stomping and grinding and sexy, yeah.

We've arranged Not Afraid and Pwned and are going to try to debut at least Pwned at HDIF. Especially since Marianna and Anna worked out the most BRILLIANT choreography for it. AMPy and I were jumping up and down on the sofa, just watching them, it was so cool. I'm excited to see how it looks onstage.

Mood is improving. I dug out the week's worth of medication that I saved and hid, just in case detoxing from it went horribly wrong, and I've started taking it again. The side effects are pretty grim - headaches, dizziness, that awful metalic taste in my mouth - though some of them are good - loss of appetite, inability to drink, occasional bursts of euphoic daze. It removes your ability make even the simplest of decisions - I stood in a doorway at the Vibe Bar for ten minutes, trying to decide whether to get in a queue or not, until Anna rescued me.

But the horrible up and downs have stopped. My bruised pride is recovering, and I'm starting to feel a lot more positive about myself. These pictures (thanks to Lady Vervaine) help. I never suffer from narcissism because I know I'm fugly, but these are the first photos in ages where I actually like the way I look. Where I think "Damn! If I were a boy, I'd fuck me!" Sorry if this seems vain, but I need it right now.

Also, Anna says I should dress like the Jesus and Mary Chain more often. Apparently it suits me. That's not what my mum used to say in 1985...

Pyjama Party

2006-04-29T09:07:00.000Z

Woke up, did a bit of a cry, then thought "Actually, thank fuck we're putting out the single. At least now I have something to look forward to."

Wasted too much of my life trying to impress rubbish boys who don't actually care, sick of this script, want another one. I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille.

Sat up all night with AMP getting drunk and talking about the rubbishness of boys, and this morning woke up and lay in bed talking about music and Riot Grrrl and everything we wanted to accomplish - she's writing a book (!!!!!) and songs are leaping into my head, time to work on an album. I'm the Candle, and she's the Camera, and together we are Art.

And I wanted to hate it, wanted to think it was crap, but the Tom Yum Fun track (Sorry, I know that's not what they're called, but I was doing a drunk and it was funny) is actually really good. Lots of tinkling glockenspiels and atmospheric Duran Duran whooosh synth noises and steel drums and blokey singing like Magnetic Fields minus the adenoids. OK, it would be better if we did Squeeze style "coooooool for cats" harmonies in the background, but we won't tell him that. This is exciting. Now we have to decide what colour to make it.

Blown Away

2006-04-28T22:33:00.000Z

First, it's the fear. The tightening of the chest, because you know what's coming when you see his number in your missed calls register. The hurt, as he stumbles his way through saying it. Then the anger, the pissed off BILE as you throw it back in his face. "Just don't say it, just don't give me the fucking line, I've heard them all before. Sorry but you don't think about me *that way*. If I had a fucking dollar for every time I've heard the old 'I hope we can still be friends' line..."

Then the self loathing. How dare you even dream? You stupid fucking shit! How could I forget that I'm an ugly, mishapen, lump of flesh, a ball of neurosis and madness and what the fuck was I even *thinking*, believing that someone might actually be attracted to me? Don't get your hopes up. The Black Dog was right, you *are* unlovable.

Anger again. You fucking LEAD ME ON. It wasn't just my imagination, there was some kind of spark there. There was that *click*. What the fuck, how dare you?

Self loathing and self doubt. What was I thinking? You always end up alone. Why do you bother? Why do you fuck things up like this? Why do you sabotague yourself by reading too much into things? Don't be stupid, were you *mad* thinking it might be mutual? Look at the girls he likes, look at the girls he's attracted to, the silthlike willowly little things. Do you look like that? Does he look at you like he looked at your sister, like he looked at your bandmate? Look at the girls he dates - do you think you have a *chance*?

Then the outrage. "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING. This is *your* loss, if you can't see what could have been. You will never meet anyone like me ever again." Fuck it, I will never meet anyone like *you* again. Every little tiny detail, every shared conversation, every spark of interest shared, the way our brains just *fit* together, the same connections. I'm shy, I'm awkward, I'm difficult, but it was never like that with you, the words, the ideas just flowed. That's something so rare, and so beautiful, and I've smashed it to bits by daring to presume.

It's not my fault I'm ugly. I've always been. I could never slide by on my looks. I had to learn to be funny, to be clever, to be quick with a turn of phrase, to be *talented* - to be *brilliant* - when I wanted attention. I liked to think that made up for not being "hott". Thanks for the slap in the face, the reminder that it *doesn't*. The brains, the songs, the pictures, the stories, I would trade them all if I could just love and *feel* loved. But it doesn't work that way, does it? I'm not the brain, floating in the jar, I'm the humped back and the bulldog face, that's all you see. I can't even claim "I'm pretty on the inside" because I'm not, I'm a labyrinth, I'm a multitude, I'm complicated and challenging and a bit too intense and who wants that?

What happened? Did you get too close? I always loved Andre Gide's story about shipwrecks, that the survivors must cut the fingers off the people in the water, to prevent them from climbing in the boat and swamping it. So Gide's heroine cut the fingers off any emotions that might climb into her boat and swamp it. The quickest way to dispose of a man is to tell him that you might be able to love him. Sex as a weapon? Was that it?

For once, I actually don't think it was. You ticked all my boxes, the rare combination of maths brilliance and creative inspiration. Our friends used to laugh at us when we would disappear into our private rants about M Theory or the Doppler Effect or phase effects and tease me "why don't you and him just go out already?" For all my bitterness and anger and "I cannot be BOTHERED with sex or relationships ever again!" poses, you'd walk into the room and I'd just GOOEY, and think "well, actually, just maybe..."

It's a familiar pattern. Self sabotague. Disappointment. Things will never be the same again. Look on the bright side. I'll probably get a couple of songs out of it.

Don't worry. This is the last I'll write about it.

Bedsheets and Record Deals

2006-04-28T13:06:00.000Z

I actually went to John Lewis to spend the vouchers my dad gave me on a bookcase, to help with the Book Problem. But the one that I wanted, which had been just on £200 on the Christmas sales, was now back to £300 and I just couldn't do it. So instead I floated around, buying everything that took my fancy. My favourite perfume, Spellbound, which I haven't worn in ages, because I needed to break its association with my awful ex. Paisley table napkins. Posh tights. Portmeirion China, Botanic Garden pattern, in an utter panic as the shop was closing in ten minutes, which I realised was a stroke of genius when I woke up this morning and ate my oatmeal off it.

Oh, and bed linen. It turns out that AMP, Anna and I have all simultaneously and spontaneously bought new bed linen, for effectively the same reason. If - shock horror - we actually managed to get a hott boy back to our respective flats, we wanted to have beautiful bedding to attract and ensnare them into the bedroom. Hence my paisley sheets.

Anyway, I walked back to the Champion to meet AMP for a glass of wine, thinking we were just going to have a girly chat to make up for all the squabbling but no, I found myself dragged into a Proper Band Meeting with our manager and everything. The subject under discussion was the single for Brainlove Records. I've been of two minds about this for various reasons, some personal, some aesthetic, some business related. My former band had such negative experiences with record labels that I've been loathe to get involved with one again. (Especially after a press release landed in my inbox stating that we were going to release it BEFORE I had actually agreed. Grrrrrr.)

The ins and outs of the discussion were tedious and I shall spare you them. The song being discussed is "Stronger". The deal would be a split single as part of a singles club. I finally broke down, feeling a bit strong-armed and outvoted, and agreed with the sole condition that I listen to and like the flipside. My bandmates are over the moon with joy and excitement and anticipation. I wish I could share it. I feel a rising sense of panic and "oh no, here we go again..."

Now I know that this is the same "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory*" type logic that turned having a dirty dronerock boy in my bed into a disaster of national proportions earlier in the week. Maybe it's PMT (I was so jangled and hormonal that I cried on the train today when I got to the big of Big Bang where it looked like the Space Shuttle Disaster was going to scupper the COBE project), maybe it's my Gut Instinct peeking through, maybe it's just the old Black Dog trying to tell me that everything I touch turns to shite.

Anyway, who cares? I have paisley sheets and a sofa of sex. And we might have a single coming out. Now I've just got to re-record the guitars and MIX the bloody thing. ::bashes head against the desk::

*Sorry - I hate this phrase. It was a standard cliche of the same ex that the bloody song is about. Why has he been on my mind so much lately?

To Counteract All The Emo... Two Good Things

2006-04-28T09:23:00.000Z

AMP:

1) we are going to do the single
2) i have lost nearly a STONE!!!!!!!

Kate:

1) Paisley SHEETS
2) Portmerion China (Botanic Gardens pattern)

Anna:

1) We are going to do a single!
2) Even if they can't keep me full time, ***Anna's Workplace*** want to give me lots of regular work.

Interstellar Clouds Of Booze

2006-04-27T13:39:00.000Z

Don't get excited... according to Dr. Harvey-Smith at Jodrell Bank, "Although it is exciting to discover a cloud of alcohol almost 300 billion miles across, unfortunately methanol, unlike it's chemical cousin ethanol, is not suitable for human consumption!"

Well, that's my interstellar jaunt to the Pan Galactic Gargle Clouds cancelled...

Disambiguation

2006-04-27T12:40:00.000Z

So some genius (yes, we have googled and we know who you are) has given us a Wikipedia Entry.

I'm vaguely disappointed there's not a disambiguation entry for the *real* Shimura Curves.

I'm coming to the end of Simon Singh's Big Bang and the story is winding down as CMB has been discovered and the Steady State Theory disproved and there are nice pictures of radio telescopes like Jodrell Bank, where my dad used to work back in the 60s when he was doing his PhD. My Ex couldn't sleep unless he had the radio on, turned to the static between radio stations, and he claimed it was because he liked to listen to the lullabye of the Big Bang, but really it was just his tinitus.

When I was a child, I was terrified by the Big Bang, which I knew about from my dad's bedtime stories. I didn't understand that the process of expansion and entropy increasing would take hundreds of millions of billions of years, and I would have nightmares about the galaxies slipping apart, and everything going cold and dark when the sun ran out of nuclear fuel.

When things got really bad between my ex and I, I would lie in bed, listening to the static echoes of the Big Bang, and wondering what would happen when our fuel ran out, and we drifted lightyears apart. (It's not a new metaphor, my astronomy/loneliness thing - it goes right back to the Deep Field stories.) I'm terrified of drifting apart from people, of them slipping out of my gravitational field.

There was more emo crap, but I deleted it. Sick of feeling like this, the fear, the panic that is triggered by getting close to someone.

ELEPHANTS!!!!

2006-04-26T17:58:00.000Z

Watch out, there's elephants in London!

Sofa of Sexxx

2006-04-26T15:51:00.000Z

Oh yes, I nearly forgot. My Chesterfield turned up today. It's obscene. It gives me the horn just looking at it. It's antique red leather, with brass studs and buttons, it just looks like sex. And sitting on it... oh my!

By Definition A Crush Must Hurt, And They Do...

2006-04-26T15:00:00.000Z

ILX is down, so my random thoughts must go here.

They say every really great friendship starts with a crush. There's something romantic about the process, the massive rush of growing intimacy, staying up all night, just talking, hanging on their every word, stories and anecdotes triggering associations and stories of your own, until the conversation wraps around itself like a vine, following each others' thoughts and finishing each others' sentences.

And I get confused between the head and the heart - I always have.

When you're drunk, it's perfect, brain to brain seems like body to body should follow. But when you're sober, the insecurities kick in. ("It's the mind that is evil. Sometimes I think if I turned off my mind, then my heart and my soul could be free...") All the things I'm not. Pretty. Skinny. Cute. All the things I'm too much of. Too fat, too clever by half, too bonkers, too intense, too self destructive. I've spent half my life in the shadow of glamourous, beautiful, more attractive sisX0r, friends, bandmates - and who the hell would want me by comparison? And that kind of overcomes the rush of "OMIGODYOUARETHEMOSTAMAZINGBOYEVER" with "ooh, errr, if you're so great, why would you want to be with me?"

This is the best part of the crush, when it's still nothing but possibility, before the "Sorry, but I don't think about you *that* way" conversation, before it crystalises into disappointment or relief, settles down into friendship or blows up into Weirdness, when it's still that excruciating balance of joy and agony and a word, a look, a text message can make you feel like the world is a good place.

Oh yeah, we played a gig in there, too. I find gigs traumatic lately. I just do. Everything that goes wrong feeds the rising panic, and then the littlest thing can set me off. I flubbed words, forgot to even play an entire guitar solo on one song. And at the end of the set, the rest of the band pissed off, leaving me to clear up and take down everything. And the entire Kissing Time totally bumrushed the stage before I'd packed up my stuff, terrible etiquette, terrible vibes, I just felt rushed and harried and hurried and snarled at anyone who came near me until I'd gone outside and cried and kicked walls in the alley behind the Windmill for ten minutes. I hate getting offstage and feeling like that. You don't feel euphoric like a rock star, you just feel drained and awful.

Came back in, got drunk. Talked to people I haven't seen in ages, (Matt hew, Simon, Jane) which was actually lovely, though it's hard to do any kind of catchup at a gig because then the band comes on, or you have to do another bit of schmooze. And there were strops and urgent meetings in the Ladies' Room, conferences and confidences and suddenly, fiercely, I started to love my band again, realised exactly what it was I loved about us. We were the freaks at school, the fat chicks, the scholarship chicks, the ginger chicks, the weird chicks who hid in the library during recess. Those kinds of scars don't go away, but you overcome them by becoming FABULOUS, by forming your own gang.

So here are my glamourous band, looking like Russian Dolls, thanks to ACB:

Cathedrals of Sound

2006-04-21T12:37:00.000Z

So I went to Sonic Cathedrals las night. Why, oh why, do the bands always start so LATE there? Don't they know that most shoegazer fans are now in our 30s? And consequently have mortgages and dayjobs amd last trains that must be caught? Howling Bells (advertised at going on about 10.15) didn't hit the stage until 11.30 which meant I only caught 4 or 5 songs before I had to dash to try and catch (with moments to spare) the last train to Brixton. Bah.

I'd had a good dinner and gossip with Catty, which meant I was in a good mood. Even though I had to shout at her for violating the Girl Code and fancying the same bandmember as I did. (Grrr, the lovely Carlos Barat is MINE, dammit!) Explained all about why Dylan Moran is the new Black and she was all "Oh, he's the Irish dude from Shaun of the Dead?" and her eyes went DOING! and lit up. But I've never seen that film because Hilton Betegeuse is in it, and even though being turned into a zombie and getting his head smashed open is the best fate you could wish on a former BoyThing, I was boycotting it for ages.

However, sitting around a club, by myself, waiting... and waiting... for the band to come on is, well, Rubbitch. Yes, the music was fantastic, as it always is, but after a while you start to think "But I've got all these records at home..." Ah well, loads of Telescopes videos (wow, psychedelic!) and a cute, floppy bartender, and when the hott shoegazer boys finally turned up, it was nice to have a bit of an oogle.

But then Nobody's Prawn turned up, and we had a good natter about cider and her upcoming all expenses paid jaunt to Rome (damn style journalists and their amazing perks!) and about why the support band just weren't doing it for us. So close and yet so far. Lovely guitar textures, but a bit too much of the old Sigur Ros and NO CHOONS. Yes, I know this is dronerock, but still. If you're going to have a singer, you should bother with a melody.

Waited... and waited... and waited... and I got so bored I curled all the strings of all the balloons in the venue. And Howling Bells came on (eventually) and they were amazing - sort of Opal meets JAMC meets Drugstore in an Australian spaghetti western (and oh my lord, they are Teh Hottness). The singer's voice has that quality of... otherworld-weariness that is quite hard to match. But, like I said, I had to leave after only 5 songs. Bah.

Going to see Bellowhead, an 11 piece folk orchestra with tubas and everything in Blackheath tonight. I used to go to folk gigs a lot with my father when I was younger, but I've not been to one willingly since I was a teenager. I'm reviewing it for Plan B, as well. Should be interesting, especially if it involves some of this:

Dirty Folk Boys, oh yes.

Boredom, Boredom, Boredom

2006-04-20T16:30:00.000Z

I'm bored. I am CONSUMED with ennui.

I have half an hour to kill before going off to meet Catty for Messican food, then I'm going to Sonic Cathedrals to gaze at the beautiful shoegazer boys. Swoon. I've worn my best stripey shirt and everything. But right now I am bouncing off the walls, beating my head against the desk in frustration at what passes for "documentation" in this company.

People ask for reports, my job is to find the information, code the reports, set them up - but people ask for the VAGUEST things. So I wrote out this whole form asking exactly what they wanted. So what do they do? They type out the vague random nonsense in the "description" box, fill out nothing else, and pass it back to me.

Today I want to quit my job and become a painter because Rex Whistler looked so pretty in the article about him in Country Life. Apparently, he was the inspiration for Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisted. He certainly inspired me to paint murals on my walls.

I'm having a cranky day WRT the band. The spectre of record companies and dealing with them rears its ugly head. I had such bad experiences in The Lollies that I'm gunshy. But we've been asked to be on a couple of compilations, which is good. Good things are happening, it's just hard for me to get as excited about it as I probably should, because of the feeling of "here we go again, none of this will actually happen." Ooh, negativity.

The Girls are getting together without me tonight, to come up with dance routines. I am excused dancing, on account of my having to play guitar, which is an immense relief, as I'm a rubbish dancer. (n.b. this refers to actual, proper, synchronised and choreographed dance routines - I'm a GRATE dancer when I'm drunk and cutting loose on the dancer floor, but who isn't?) I feel a bit funny, though, like I'm being left out of the fun. Especially with the random floating fits of paranoia about detachment and alientation and OH NO, THEY ALL HAAAAATE ME OH NO. But really. I think I would only find it frustrating.

Trying to discourage myself from developping an inconvenient IRL crush. Which is kind of counter-productive, because the problem with trying not to develop a crush by telling yourself all the problems and reasons it wouldn't work out only makes it seem DOOMED and ROMANTIC and MORE APPEALING. I just wish it would go away. Or something.

For Comparison Purposes Only

2006-04-19T11:16:00.000Z

See? Yes, the same shade of pink. But he doesn't have any paisley.

About The Weather

2006-04-19T09:24:00.000Z

There's something meteorological about the way that moods change. Sometimes depression lifts like the sun burning off a morning fog. Sometimes it's more like a glacial melt, icebergs breaking up, sometimes it's more dramatic, like a sudden squall blown out to sea.

Either way, I don't complain so long as it goes.

Colours help. Like these beautiful flowers that Anna brought to rehearsal last night, to cheer me up. They match my flat - like my flat now matches me, as if the paisley crawled off my shirt and onto my walls.

Beautiful music helps. Rehearsal last night sounded good, we sounded like a band again. It's important to rehearse often, and keep ourselves in good voice, even if it gets tedious sometimes, it does pay off.

Alcohol doesn't help. But that was such a gorgeous bottle of Argentinian Malbec that perfectly complimented the curry. I should try buying more random wines because I like the labels.

But I'm So NOT! I'm The Pop Kid!

2006-04-18T16:46:00.000Z

It's not fair. I *hate* Free Jazz! It was the questions about Can lyrics and organ drones that made me get this. Sigh.

You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.

You're Avante Garde Indie. You listen to abstract music like free-jazz and Krautrock. You drink too much coffee and you scare the fuck out of the rest of us. We're afraid to call you pretentious because we know that we all just don't get it. There are few of you out there, and most of you will probably die soon.
Take this quiz!

Depression Headache

2006-04-18T10:22:00.000Z

...when the depression is so bad it actually feels like a physical pressure on the inside of your skull.

*****

Carry on, little hammer - you were always my favourite toy. The Pale Saints' Comforts Of Madness and paint fumes have been keeping me sane for the past week. I wish I had the CD here.

*****

Was the interweb always this boring, or did I just forget the tedious bits while I was off it? FOR GODS SAKE, SOMEONE SAY SOMETHING, ANYTHING BEFORE MY BRAIN EXPLODES FROM ATROPHY!

*****

My lunchtime curry is not hot enough. This is because I made it in a panic at 10pm last night when I realised I'd been painting for about 12 hours straight and I had nothing to eat for lunch the rest of the week.

*****

OK, so I went out at lunchtime, mainly to buy some tea as I've nearly run out, and my bandmates insist that they are not drinking tonight at rehearsal (which is a shame, as I picked up some nice Rioja on a tip from Mr. Nite), and as I was on my way back from Sainsburys with my PG Tips (I always buy PG Tips because they are pyramid shaped, and I'm convinced that this ads ORGONE ENERGY to the anti-oxidants) I really really did intend to stop at a coffeeshop and get some Proper Coffee for the first time since Lent is over, but as I walked in, I was assaulted by a wall of smoke so solid and inpenetrable that I had to turn back, coughing, and now I'm back in the office, and back on the ~~methadone~~ green tea.

I have vague memories of smoking a cigarette on Saturday afternoon. This is odd, as I don't smoke. I blame Dylan Moran. Or peer pressure. Or something.

Black Dog

2006-04-18T09:18:00.000Z

I'm back in the office, which is, surprisingly, a bit of a relief. I got hit quite badly by the Black Dog On My Shoulder last week, and the depression hasn't broken yet. :-(

At least my flat is paisley. My brother is giving me a digital camera so there may be pictures of this soon.

Oh, and apparently we're on Fluxblog which is pretty durn cool. Wow, someone who *gets it*.

More later...

I've Been To The Most Marvellous Party

2006-04-10T08:32:00.000Z

I've been drunk for the past three days straight, so please bear with me.

I woke yesterday morning with the most horrendous hangover in the history of drinking. When I moved my purse (open on the bed next to me) another bottle of wine rolled out. Oh yes. That's right. I'd been to Anna's party the night before. Slowly scraped myself into some semblance of order and got on the train to AMP's. I don't like the DLR, it scares me with its driverless ways. But hurrah for small mercies, I found an entire Observer on the train and nicked the magazines.

After a taxi to London Fields, we set up at Amy Prior's house, pushing the sofas back and turning it from a living room into a "space" with chairs all set out like a children's piano recital. Amy has the coolest house in the world; she described it as being designed "in three weeks by a person having a nervous breakdown, with builders who didn't speak English" and it's amazing and Alice In Wonderland with fantastic strange rooms that look out over balconies and stairways to nowhere made out of wires and bedrooms like nests that you can't quite stand up in. Fantastic amazing artwork on all the walls (and I'm not just saying that because she's got one of mine. Heh.)

So we set up, and the time for the party came and went. And no one arrived. So I thought "sod this" and walked to Broadway Market to get some sandwiches and pink wine (and oh my lord, they grow the boys cute in London Fields) and by the time I got back the party had started and all my fabulous friends were there. Hurrah!

AMP's sister Lisa DJ'ed and we drank rum or pimms and ate cake and everybody gave me fantastic presents! Hurrah, birthdays are great! I should have them more often. I got pink pears and a Liberty bracelet from my mum, the Tim Burton book, an amazing teapot, 2 mix CDs and a Powerpuff Girls ornament. Wa-hey! Oh, and some balloons, which I tied to my guitar.

Johnney B arrived with the treacle pudding (unfortunately not in a flaming wheelbarrow, due to the rain). We watched Guys and Dolls with the sound off on the wall. What else happened?

Oh yes, we played a gig of sorts. I don't think we were very good - we were unbelivably drunk and kind of too giggly (Anna has the plan that if we fail as a band, we can always become a comedy improv act. Even though I Hate. Comedy. You know, cause I've not got a sense of humour.) I made random party guests (especially poor The Lex) act as my guitar stand - Matt took a photo of him looking like a bulldog licking piss from a nettle at the thought he might be mistaken for indie. So yeah, singing, dancing, ELEPHANTS, ARRRRGGGHHH!!! though I had to shout at my bandmates to make them do sex noises on Insecurities Trader. The new dance routine for Noyfriend went down with great aplomb.

And then Charlie arrived, sopping wet, after the gig had finished with the ~~Liquid Wiggle~~ with our first proper, published, printed review! In The Fly! Apart from dropping the dreaded P-word, it was by all accounts a good review. We got compared to St.Etienne and the Shortwave Set, and apparently we "ride the Routemaster of pop, giggling" (oops, who told him about our adventures out-chavving the chavvy girls at the back of the 43.)

And then we got to the read fun of the evening - MADONNA KARAOKE!!! There's this great new chazz shop that's opened up down the road (Yes, what does Streatham need more of? Clearly charity shops! It sells nothing but books and CDs and I bought an Ackroyd novel, a big illustrated book about the history of sailing and my former housemate's first novel for £2 each!) which sells things like this.

I can't even remember who did what. I think I mangled Beautiful Stranger and then next thing I know everyone is bouncing around and Joe did Death Metal Madonna and everybody danced and it was great. Walked back in the rain through London Fields and passed out on Emsk's sofa. Hurrah!

The Best Banner Ad Ever!

2006-04-07T16:50:00.000Z

Drunk At Work

2006-04-07T13:40:00.000Z

It's the tits!

I love birthday.s

HIc!

Good Morning My Little Shower Of Shit

2006-04-06T09:02:00.000Z

I'm in a bad mood today. I'm in a *gloriously* bad mood. I'm in a swearing at random people on the train, shouting at traffic and glowering at my colleagues Bad Mood. I'm in such a Bad Mood that I'm actually *enjoying* being in a bad mood. Which sort of defeats the purpose of a Bad Mood - it's a bit like rooting for the bad guys in Bond films so you don't get scared by the tension.

I have a hangover. This is an apalling state of affairs considering how little I drank last night. I scowered my cupboards until I found the bottle of good South African red I hid around my last birthday. I intended merely to have a glass while I was cooking Special Soup (last night I added oyster mushrooms to the mix - heavenly) but, after over a month of sobriety, halfway through it I was well on my way to be schnockered. This is outrageous! The body is not equipped to handle six weeks of not drinking; it saps the constitution and weakens the liver's ability to process booze.

However, I do feel like myself again. Sod sobriety and SSRI's and anger management and the fluffy version of Kate that my shrink would like to propegate. Today I am enjoying being a curmudgeon.

Crash

2006-04-05T17:02:00.000Z

I was going to post this to ILX, but I changed my mind, due to its utter EMO EMO EMO content. But then I suddenly grew paranoid at the thought of posting it here because of my contingent of stalkers. But fuck that. It's *MY* blog. If you don't like it, don't read it.

And now I am in a bad mood and can't even articulate why. Something akin to frustration or loneliness, or I don't even know. The realisation that I've finished most things that need desperately to be done at work, and I could go home. But what for? Why bother? I've realised I habitually work such long hours because I've got nothing and no one to go home for.

It's spring, the weather is beautiful. I'd like to go to the pub - or even just go get a pizza. I've been trying to convince someone, anyone, to go get a pizza with me for nearly a week. Isn't that pathetic? I just want to go out and have a good time and can't find anyone to share it.

You lock yourself away and you insulate yourself from hurt, to prevent yourself from EVER being hurt again. (Yes, I know this is impossible. But argh, the memory of that hurt. The anger, the self loathing at the stupidity of allowing yourself to be hurt so badly.) It's easier being alone. And it's far better being alone than being with someone you detest (or worse, detests you) - which often seems like the only option available on a romantic front.

But every now and then, the loneliness just stabs through. "Do I deserve just to be alone" as The Church once sang.

A phone full of friends and no one to call. I try to round people up and whip up excitement and get people to go to PARTIES! GIGS! COUNTRY WALKS!!! But you know what? The last few gigs we played, I ended up sitting by myself backstage, just feeling stressed and unable to enjoy it. Organisational fatigue. I'd have given anything to just give up and go get a pizza. I thought I joined a band to make friends. Oh wait, no, that's a lie. I first started a band, ~~a million~~ twenty years ago, so I'd have something to do at parties and nightclubs to stop me sitting in a corner reading a book.

This will pass. I will return to being smooth and self contained, and prattle on about Simon Singh books and whatever pointy nosed boy I'm currently lusting after. I'll go home and cook Special Soup and get into bed with my biography of Nelson. Maybe you'll read this, maybe you'll skip it as soon as you see the Emo Warning. Maybe you'll leave me a comment telling me to cheer up, but probably not. Probably you'll just feel vaguely superior because I'm wallowing in self pity or whatever. Or maybe someone will finally go get a sodding pizza with me.

Is It Just Spring Or Are The Boys Actually Getting Cuter?

2006-04-05T09:05:00.000Z

So what is it? Is it the nip in the air? The sunshine? Some hormonal rush caused by lambing season and fresh air and estrogen in the water supply?

Boys are horrible! They're annoying, frustrating, irritating and they smell faintly of goats. Yet somehow, lately, is it me, or have they become the most fasinating thing in the world to look at? Bah. Make it stop, the pointy noses and the jawlines and the set of their skinny shoulders, slouched in tweed jackets.

I've demoed two new(ish) songs. Not Afraid or Unified or whatever I'm going to end up calling the song about the Grand Unification Theory has turned into a lovely, space-shuffle with whispery vocals and cooing angel harmonies of the spheres. I can't stop listening to it! And Pwned (AMP's first lyrical Shimuras credit) has turned into a joyous stomp with crazy West African guitar and video game noises and even a computerised voice at the end going "SHIMURA CURVES WINS AGAIN, AH HA HA HA!!!" (thanks, ~~Stephen Hawking~~ Percy the Laptop.) It even makes *me* want to beat boys at videogames and I *hate* games!

We seem to have booked more shows, too. It turns out that Marianna is going to see Take That on the 10th May, so we are playing at How Does It Feel To Be Loved on the 11th May. Hurrah. We're on first so we can get drunk afterwards. Excellent!

Anyway, here's another totally gratuitous picture of Dylan Moran. Sigh.

Oh yeah, ~~some cnut who doesn't even like him~~ Steve Mannion of ILX* wrote this, presumably as a dis on to why woman are attracted to him: The accent obviously, it is great - charming and effortlessly seductive. He looks like he desperately needs feeding/looking after...but comfortable with it. Wild eyes, the look of a man who slept in the street after some random drunken adventures, the craving for hedonistic excess and gay abandon, recklessness, but also the blatant passion and belief in ideas, standards (however contradictory), the evidence of intelligence (specs, plus rantings about Chaucer or whatever) despite ridiculous, chaotic way of living suggesting shades of genius, unpredictable, emotional... God, am I that predictable? Honestly, I can't wait until this is all over and I'm miserable and happy again.

*apologies for not quoting name, chapter and verse previously. Apparently this makes me a "creepy stalker" - though honestly, what's more "creepy" - commenting on something you read on a message board, or obsessively reading (and commenting on) the blog of someone you claim to dislike?

This Is Not Just A Gratuitous Picture Of Dylan Moran

2006-04-04T12:26:00.000Z

...it is the exact colour of pink that I am going to be painting my living room.

OK, it is also a gratuitous picture of Dylan Moran, but my god, LOOK how pointed his nose is!