Oxygen Thief album = 1 month old today! #teamDIY‏

Hey peeps, my album turns 1 month old today so have put it up to stream online to celebrate:

http://soundcloud.com/oxygenthief/sets/teamdiy

It's only going to be up there in full for today, so if you could pass the link around Facebook/Twitter/etc then that'd be awesome.

I've a couple more favours to ask if that's ok? I'm not too fond of the concept of "street teams" and all that, but the odd call to arms every now and then is alright isn't it?

If so, I might get a few #teamDIY badges made & send them out with stickers to say thanks for helping out. Then we'll work out some sort of secret handshake and go on adventures and solve crimes and drink lashings of ginger beer........

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Favour #2 - free download single Terry Nutkins Salute has been played a couple of times by Tom Robinson on 6music, which is awesome but...it'd be nice to get a bit more airplay wouldn't it?

If you have a minute to email your favourite alternative music dj (Huw Stephens, Steve Lamacq, Zane Lowe, the Rock Show/Punk Show, Bruce Dickenson, XFM, etc) and point them in my direction then that'd be a huge help.

If you've not already downloaded it, then head to http://www.oxygenthief.bandcamp.com for a slice of noise.

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Favour #3 - Sites like Amazon, iTunes, Banquet Records etc all have "customer reviews" sections where you can rate things and leave comments - entries for the album are looking a bit sparse at the moment...so if you've already got it and would be up for popping your opinion down then go ahead:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004UR2AAC

Banquet: http://www.banquetrecords.com/btr9

iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/modesty-is-dead/id429133101?i=429133104

If you haven't already got it, then grab it from one of those links :)

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Think that's about it for now - thanks to everyone who came out to gigs on the tour, it was a fun month. Things are a little on the quiet side gig-wise for a while, going to start working on some new stuff for a bit, but my 200th ever gig will coincide with my set at 2000 Trees Festival so I'm looking forward to that, and I'll be opening for the rock-tastic Hymns in Bristol on Saturday 23rd July

Cheers

Barry OT

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Upcoming gigs:

Thursday 16th June - The Arts Centre, Winterbourne
Friday 15th July - 2000 Trees Festival (200th gig - bring beers)
Saturday 23rd July - The Croft, Bristol (w/Hymns)

Like on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/oxygenthief666

DIY May tour diary - leg 2

Just a quick jaunt this one, v.London-centric with a gig at The Cricketers in Kingston, and one for a friend’s brother’s 18^th birthday party. Let’s forget the fact that I went to the dayjob for a bit inbetween and call this:

Day 9: Kingston
Another thoroughly hardcore Radio 4 soundtracked journey, with a justifiable sense of déjà-vu from last Friday’s identical jaunt. Arriving at The Cricketer’s to meet Del and Zoe I immediately have suggestions of getting a curry implanted into my not-actually-that-hungry brain…..yumcurrytimeyum. Erstwhile tour buddy Kev from [edit] Radio arrived to keep me company for this jaunt, then it was rock o’(massive)clock. 

Gig itself was fun, if a little sparse crowd-wise (about 3 other events happening in K-Town tonight +The Great Escape Festival just down the road in Brighton – excellent timing!) and the venue had some quite serious quirks with its enormous non-running clock, furry carpeted stage, and shonky monitor platforms that barely took my weight…but that I stood (and probably stamped) on anyway. Tonight was my first Luke Leighfield experience, a highlight of which was a fairly lengthy improvised song on the subject of cake – which I’m pretty sure I filmed so will upload soon enough. Hopefully he’ll take on my suggestion of an entirely cake themed concept album; Luke Cakefield, yum.

Afterwards we piled back to Del’s famous shed where I drank a bottle of rosé wine like it was beer (i.e. far too fast), ate crisps, and played Guitar Hero until the early hours of the morning.  Watching Del attempt Hotel California on Expert made me realise how insane that game can be sometimes – if you turned the sound off you’d swear he was attempting some ridiculous Dragonforce track, rather than the relatively-easy-to-play-on-an-actual-guitar country-rock classic. It’s for that reason that I refuse to play on a greater difficulty level than “medium”, and not because I suck and am bitter about it, oh no.

Day 10: London
An early-ish start to pop back into Banquet Records and vandalise a few more copies of my album with silver and gold pens – thanks for buying from them, if you did…and if head to: www.banquetrecords.com/btr9  - and then off into East London to drop off some baggage and find a way to kill a few hours. Kev and I decided to spend the day in Shoreditch playing “Spot The Dickhead”  – we lost count – and went for a meaty combo feast at the Hoxton Bar & Grill: YUM. Later we strolled around, ending up at the Big Chill Bar just off Brick Lane to meet up with a couple more pals before heading to gigland.

Tonight’s gig was part of Josaka head honcho Jim Bowes’ little brother’s 18^th birthday party. Now, birthday party gigs can go one of two ways; either they’re relentless blasts of fun packed with people intent on having an awesome time, or they’re soul destroying evenings where you play to a crowd more intent on getting trashed and chatting to their mates than paying any attention whatsoever to the bands onstage. So it was with a little trepidation that I set up in the quirky Jamboree venue in the middle of the Cable Street Studios complex, the slight hangover and lack of sleep creating a bit of a negative mood.

Thankfully I needn’t have worried at all – Josh and his friends were up for it from the moment they arrived, and were an absolutely lovely bunch; singing along, headbanging, dancing, doing absolutely everything you could possibly ask of an audience and making for one of the most fun 30 minutes I have ever spent on a stage. Highlights for me were asking Josh if he was looking forward to his first ever alcoholic drink (as obviously he’d not have had one before the legal drinking age of 18, right?) and changing the words of “Gold” to “Josh” in the last chorus so everyone could shout his name over and over. Fun fun fun fun FUN.

Headliners Six Nation State got, if anything, an even more enthusiastic reaction, and the party was still going strong as I reluctantly ran for what I thought was my last train (it wasn’t – the TFL website lied/I was too drunk to read it properly). An awesome evening, thanks for having me along.