Oxygen Thief B-log

Oxygen Thief album = 1 month old today! #teamDIY‏

2011-06-09T04:56:00.001-07:00

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

2011-06-07T07:45:00.000-07:00

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.

DIY May tour diary - leg 1

2011-05-18T03:15:00.000-07:00

What happened to the weather? It was bakingly hot and beautiful, like all the summers that your parents tell you they experienced every year of their lives at your age* when it's pissing down through July and August........and then suddenly I walked out the front door this morning to find I needed a jumper and an umbrella. Bastard.

Such meterological phenomena aside, I'm back from the first week of my tour with...oh, I'm on my own this time aren't I, so it's a tour with Spotify Premium, a week's restful bank holiday boozing already playing havok with my liver, and my album waiting in the wings for its chance to wrestle its way into people's homes.

This leg of the tour had some interesting clashes with Real Life, a variety of attendence levels, and a serious amount of mileage - sorry carbon footprint.

DAY 1: Birmingham

Started with an activity even more rock & roll than installing a washing machine** - going to my gran's 83rd birthday lunch. I love my gran, she's ace.

My Gran, and my sister; see if you can guess which is which.

Some familial catching up, a tiny glass of champers, and far too much food later we're heading back to Bristol & then I'm Birmingham-bound on the M5 for tonight's first gig at The Adam & Eve. Arriving far too early, I settle in for the evening as the pub slowly starts to populate itself with punters weary from the prolonged bank holiday festivities, yet still keen to witness this evening's lineup of acoustic music.

I've been to the A&E a few times - once for some cable-tv showcase thing which I never ended up seeing (probably a good thing really) - and they've always been a hospitable and fun bunch to play for. I greet a few familiar faces, make a weird piece of modern art broach type thing out of a Pringles can (see below) and get myself ready.

Yours for just £2,999,995, and a tube of Pringles.

Annoyingly the opening 3 acts all over run, leading to a bit of a rush for me to get my full set in before the curfew...but luckily the bar staff urge me to play on, so probably end up going over my set time in the end but wtf. A fun opening night & then back to an old pal's place for Easter egg, G&T, toffee vodka and sleep.

Day 2: Oxford

Despite having a week off, my bodyclock is still firmly set to "dayjob" mode, so I wake up far too early & set off for Oxford - my first visit in January was a bit of a rushed affair so I was determined to make the most of a day out in this historic city, sitting in posh places scribbling in my awesome Dr Who notebook...and so I do; strolling around the grounds of the Bodleian while groups of Japanese and American tourists do battle to see who can fulfil the greatest quota of national stereotypes, not to be outdone by the outstandingly posh English tour guides; I also get myself some picnic material and sit in the grounds of Christ Church marvelling at just how much like living in a postcard this feels, I mean just look at this:

Nowhere should look this awesome on a photo taken by a fucking telephone...

amazing advances in technology or not.

I also stumbled upon The Oxford Museum, which for a suggested £1 donation (I gave 5 x 20p coins) you could witness such delights as; a map showing where some Roman settlements were found near, but not in, Oxford; some marmalade; and a 15 minute video narrated by Tony Robinson in which culminated in rejoicing in the city's vibrant music scene "spearheaded by Supergrass and Radiohead". I'll type that again, "Supergrass and Radiohead". The only reason I can think of for their being ordered that way is that the museum is curated by Gaz Coombes' dad. Supergrass and Radiohead, honestly. And that wasn't the only tragedy - I scoured the whole museum and didn't find even one reference to Lewis, or his sidekick Hathaway. Hell, they didn't even mention the seminal detective series' little known pilot outing "Morse". Mental.

Reeling from this shock omission I made my wa y back to Café Tarifa via a quick pint and a phone charge in the Rusty Bicycle wherein I overheard the most overbearing self-important cuntversation of all time between a group of guys that wanted everyone in the pub to know that they were musicians, and how brilliant that made them, and how they knew people who were signed and everything. I honestly wanted to punch my balls off just for the association of having something in common with these pricks - I would have left earlier, but my phone hadn't charged enough & I wouldn't be able to get into the venue for another hour so endured it as my blood pressure rose.

Now the venue was lovely and the staff were all uber friendly, but unfortunately it just didn't quite happen tonight - there was a reasonable crowd for the first act on, but they were more of a "let's have a chat while some music happens" group of people, so pretty much all got up and went to the other end of the bar as soon as I started playing, leaving me with an audience of about 4. That combined with the fact that I drank one of their enormous bottles of beer before going onstage meant that it was a bit of a self conscious set which I didn't fully enjoy.........still, made a few friends, met up with a couple of old ones, and had a fun day so can't complain.

AND I GOT GIVEN GIANT BEER:

I <3 my giant beer.

Day 3: Bristol

Another relatively early morning tour-wise, stupid bodyclock, so made it back to Bristol in time to have a spot of lunch with @mrsthief and spend the afternoon generally lazing around, getting to The Mother's Ruin in plenty of time to soundcheck, pop out for supplies, and greet the twin loveliness of Jim Lockey and Benny J. Hayes.

Both organising and playing a gig can be a bit of a weird experience as you end up sitting on the door instead of watching the other acts properly (though snatched a couple of looks). Couple that with the fact that you're playing your album in its entirety for the first time ever and there's the potential for a massive nervebomb funfail. Thankfully lots of people came along, were very generous with the pay-what-you-want arrangement (extra bonus points to Stan The Man for putting an entire tenner in) and my voice coped fine with the utter live unfriendliness of the running order (Terry Nutkins Salute third on the tracklist? Ouch) so I had a lot of fun, chatted a lot between songs, and ended up with a rousing outing for Gold (with my first ever self-centred "when I say X, you reply Y") and !@*# track There Can Be Only One for good measure.

Day 4: Brighton

With Jodie Live-Music-Scene on board as co-driver we set off down the scenic route to Brighton, arriving in time to spend £6 on a parking meter and explore the Laines a bit - managing to find a whole new row of shops, including what I can only describe as a vintage clothing and bric-a-brac hypermarket that I'm going to visit again sometime after winning the lottery to stock up on the humungous amount of kitsch brilliance contained therin.

Resisting the call of seaside fish & chips, thinking we'd probably find something healthier***, but Jodie being unable to

I've only played Brighton twice; the first time on a bill with Oasis wannabees in a Wetherspoons-esque venue playing to disinterested friends of the other bands, the second time in a sweaty room above an awesome rock bar, so was looking forward to my 3rd visit to the area. The venue is more a section of the pub, and it seemed to be a focus point for the unusual; a beer garden crammed with people smoking...but weirdly not seeming to visit the bar. Ever. A small dog (Adam Boucher christened her "Wakima") stage invading. And most brilliantly, a small ginger girl placing a helium "I'm Sorry" balloon at the merch table...then SCREAMING at her brother when he tried to retrieve it, insisting it was left in its new position.

I mean, people call all sorts of situations surreal ("Oh my god I went to buy some cheese and they'd run out; it was so surreal") when they actually mean "unusual", "strange", or in most cases..."slightly outside their normal parameters of experience" but I feel this was a turn of events worthy of the label for once - just consider the facts:

a) why did this child have the balloon in the first place?

b) why did the child decide to leave it at the merch table?****

c) what possible offence could you commit that would be serious enough to require some kind of action beyond a verbal apology, to which the purchase of an inflatable "I'm Sorry" balloon would be an adequate, and acceptable gesture?

The mind boggles.

Oh yeah, it also had this amended sign next to the Dyson Airblade

I <3 Dyson Airblades, want one in my downstairs loo sooooooo bad.

Still, it was a fun gig and we managed to incorporate the balloon, and the dog, into proceedings pretty well. Honorable mentions to the fantastic Hollywood Assassins for rock & rolling pretty hard, Adam Boucher for road testing his new backing band, and Adam Bennett for making it all happen.

There was only the small matter of having to drive back to Bristol post-gig as I had to attend a new dayjob interview at 9.50am the next morning - luckily Jodie LMS was up to the task and admirably got me home in time for about 5 hours pre-interview sleep. Hardcore or what?

Day 5: Banquet Records Instore. aka "The Day I Did Everything"

Bed at 3am, awake just after 7am, with a not insignificant amount of disturbance from our cat Monty to contend with during the night. Feeling weirdly awake and not at all mentally deranged I went through the usual interview routines, drank an enormous cup of tea, and went off to wow all and sundry. Feeling pretty positive***** I returned home to have a couple of hours kip before heading back on the road for my Banquet Records instore....well, that was the plan - in reality I led down for about 2 minutes, couldn't get to sleep, so watched Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle and then went to bash 7 shades of shite out of my drums instead. Revitalising.

One intensely rock & roll journey later (listening mainly to Radio 4) I arrive at the majestic Banquet Records, starting point for one hell of a lot of cds/records I've bought in the last few years, and get down to some serious browsing. It's been said many times before, but this place is just brilliant; a well stocked, well informed, well intentioned shop that truly seems concerned with the love of music above all else. After a bracing cup of tea courtesy of JT, I get my gig on - initially feeling a little bit starstruck by the building itself, and feeling a little bit self conscious about playing fully unplugged and shouting directly into the faces of the amassed dozen-strong audience, but I thoroughly enjoy the whole thing and stunned to see so many of the attendees buying copies of the album & asking me to sign them. Buy my album from them now, hell - buy all your music from them in future: www.banquetrecords.com/btr9.

This = Ace.

After a quick catch up with the soon to be Dr Pendrey, I set off for Reading to meet up with Broken Tail Records overlord Ben Marwood and [edit] Radio's Kev Lawson to celebrate the former's milestone 30th year of being alive. First stop is at a fellow celebrant's festival-themed party, where I almost fall straight asleep as the day's activities catch up with me. But after some cake, inappropriate gaffa tape artwork, and a few pints of life giving water, I'm back in a party mood and it's off to the After Dark for double Jack Daniels + Red Bulls and a lengthy conversation about the heavy-metal-covers-of-advert-jingles band that I dearly want to start one day.

Happy Birthday Mr Marwood!

All together now *double bass drum battery* AUTOGLASS REPAIRRRRR, AUTOGLASS RE-PLACE! *chugga chugga widdle-widdle-woooooooo*

Day 6: Day off
And after two nights in a row of staying up till 3 or 4am it's going to be a good lie-in right? WRONG. Firstly I have to wake up at 8am to move my car as it's parked on a single yellow. So back to sleep right? WRONG. The only other spaces in walking distance are 2 hours only, so it's back to sleep for a bit; move the car again.Fun. After a hearty birthday sausage and egg breakfast celebration I head off to pick Mrs Thief up from the station and power towards Stevenage for an old buddy's wedding and a well needed massive amount of drinking ;)

Day 7: CheltenhamAnother night of inadequate sleep and it's time to drive to Cheltenham, via Bristol, for the inaugural Trees On Fire all dayer - a collaboration between the 2000 Trees Festival organisers, and the lovely folk at Istartedthefire Records featuring a stunning lineup. And Caves ;) I think it's safe to say that I might not have been firing on all cylinders for my set, but I had a decent stab at it & managed to enjoy all the other bands, particularly &u&i who provided me with enough of an energy boost to get back in the car and drive home to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Day 8: Album release day.
No gig to play today, but I had the whole day off to recover - so spent it catching up with Sky+, playing drums, and generally chilling out. Before drinking a bottle of champagne with Mrs Thief to celebrate the album being out, and then going to watch Fight Like Apes at The Academy and drinking a few more beers, stumbling home with ears ringing and liver throbbing. I will never learn.

Jeff & I <3 Fight Like Apes.

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Debut album Destroy It Yourself available now from:

www.banquetrecords.com/btr9 - £9.99, limited signed copies available.

www.amazon.co.uk - £6.99

Play.com Mp3 - £5.99

iTunes - £7.99

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*they lie.
**callbacks ftw.
***Papajohn's Pizza is healthy right?
****unless she was sorry not to be sticking around for the gig
*****I'm certain I wore all my clothes to the interview, and didn't answer all of their questions with the word "wibble"

Destroy It Yourself review round up

2011-05-11T01:14:00.000-07:00

Reviews have started coming in for the album, thought I'd put them all in one place:

Live-Music-Scene
Moon And Back Music
Blagsound (7/10)
Whisperin And Hollerin (7/10)

Neon Filler (4/10)

Album is out, SHAZAM!

2011-05-09T02:20:00.000-07:00

Morning all - I’ve just got back from the first leg of this tour and to say I am a bit tired would be a statement massive enough to collapse in on itself, creating a black hole and destroying the entire known universe, so I’ll refrain for the sake of all of humanity, and err…animality (or is that something from Mortal Kombat?).
Have had a great time though, so thanks to everyone who came out - tour diary/pics to follow & there are still lots more gigs to go over the coming weekends, which will rock and roll in equal measure.
In the meantime though, my album has only just gone and got released - if you’ve already preordered it, then massive great big piles of thanks. If not then you can get physical copies (with an 8 page booklet containing complete lyrics and a photo of my shouting face) from the following places;

Banquet Records (signed copies)

Townsend Records

Zavvi

HMV

Amazon

Or digitally from:

iTunes

Juno Download

Will update with a few more as they pop up.

Also, in case you might need a bit of convincing…the first couple of reviews have come in:

Whisperin And Hollerin

Live-Music-Scene.co.uk

Exciting, exhausting times - I’m off to eat breakfast and catch up on the week’s Sky+ backlog.

OT

New website: www.oxygenthiefmusic.com

2011-03-21T08:46:00.000-07:00

Oxygen Thief has a new home: www.oxygenthiefmusic.com

Ok it's the same url, but it's a new website that works better than Myspace so everyone's a winner right?

OT

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Upcoming gigs:
25th March - The Hobgoblin, Bath
31st March - Slak, Cheltenham

7th April - The Greyhound, Nottingham
8th April - Stereo, York
9th April - The Garrett, Manchester (early gig: 19.30 - 21.00)
10th April - The Cellar Bar, Worcester (TBC)

Now booking;

30th April - available
1st May - available
2nd May - Adam & Eve, Birmingham
3rd May - available
4th May - The Mother's Ruin, Bristol
5th May - The Cobbler's Thumb, Brighton
6th May - available
7th May - Frog & Fiddle, Birmingham

13th May - available
14th May - private party, London
15th May - available

19th May - available (Eire/NI)
20th May - available (Eire/NI)
21st May - available (Eire/NI)
22nd May - available (Eire/NI)

27th May - The Croft, Bristol (w/Chris T-T)
28th May - available
29th May - available

2nd June - The Swan, Kidderminster
3rd June - available
4th June - available
5th June - available

Census thoughts...

2011-03-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

Census form has arrived - aside from concerns about Lockheed's involvement there's also The Census Campaign to think carefully about.

Writing "Jedi" in the religion box is fun and all, but http://census-campaign.org.uk/ has good reasons why the non-religious should tick the "no religion" box rather than being flippant, or ticking a box that represents your cultural heritage rather than practicing affiliation.

This isn't an attack on the religious, but an important way for those without a belief to be counted and considered when it comes to the justification of future policy makers*.

That's surprisingly coherent considering the amount of Lemsip I've had today.....

*assuming that government policy has anything in mind at the moment other than "CUT IT - CUT ALL THE MONEY! ALL OF IT!"

Album + Gigs: March, April & May

2011-03-03T04:06:00.000-08:00

HELLO THERE! The album is tantilisingly close to being put in the post and made into an actual real life object, rather than just a collection of .wavs, Photoshop files, and good intentions. I can't wait. Pictures of artwork, free mp3s, and other such attention-seeking internetery to follow.

In the meantime, here's some gigs I'm playing over the next couple of months;

16/03 - The Fleece, Bristol with Dave McPherson (from Inme) & Howard James Kenny
25/03 - Bath
31/03 - Slak, Cheltenham

07/04 - The Greyhound, Nottingham
08/04 - Stereo, York
09/04 - The Garrett, Manchester
10/04 - The Cellar Bar, Worcester TBC

I'm also booking album-release-plug-a-thon tour, so if anyone wants me to come make noise in their face/has suggestions for a venue/promoter/band in your neck of the woods then get in touch via oxygenthiefmusic [at] hotmail [dot] com or twitter.com/oxygenthiefyeah:

30/04 -
01/05 -
02/05 -
03/05 -
05/05 -
06/05 -

That's it for now, laters

OT

Tour diary part 3!

2011-02-16T06:56:00.000-08:00

Wow, I’ve been home over 2 weeks now and the tour seems like a distant dream, or that it happened to someone else entirely, with the only evidence being my as-yet-unhealed split fingernail, an increasing number of photos appearing on Facebook, and the fact that The Karate Kid soundtrack is on a permanent loop around my brain – if my future musical output all ends up being synth-led aspirational nonsense about winning “the fight” and being “the best” then you’ll know why.

So, let’s try to get down as much of this as I can before the dreamory (dream-memory) is still slightly recent and before a person from Perlock comes along to banish it forever.*

Any similarity to Ben Marwood’s blog of the same period is totally coincidental, and nothing at all to do with the fact that a) we were both there at the time and b) I’ve already read his to remind myself what happened. More on my atrocious memory later.

DAY 5 – YORK. In which we get up early, eat a hearty breakfast, I get an accidentally vegetarian beef & ale pie, and we live in the lap of luxury (sort of).

Waking up unfeasibly early to be turfed out into the frosty morning by the cold hearted Jack Alcopop, whose cruel maniacal laughter could be heard echoing down the street long after he disappeared from view**we took refuge at my friend Alice’s place which weirdly happens to be directly opposite chez Jack. Spooky indication that there is a benevolent force guiding all our actions through life, or meaningless yet happy coincidence? you decide.***

Heading back to the car, memories of inserting “i”s onto numerous “To Let” signs with a permanent marker pop into my head, and I feel very proud of myself indeed. Heading out of Oxford I complete my second culinary first of the tour; a Little Chef Olympic Breakfast. Apparently all non-British athletes will be required by law to eat one of these every day before competing, thus boosting our chances of getting a few golds by upwards of 10%. Apparently the sausages were “award winning”, though not unpleasant I’d be surprised if the award was anything other than the annual “Best Sausage Served At Little Chef” award. We were also given a lollipop that tasted exactly how toilet blocks smell. Kev and I amused ourselves trying to throw them into the bin from across the carpark, failing of course but being quite satisfied when they smashed to bits on the cold tarmac below.

The rest of the day went pretty much like this: DRIVING, DRIVING, ROAD, ROAD, MOTORWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY, service station, MOTORWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY, ROAD ROAD, Travelodge. Which as you can tell, was thrilling. I’m pretty sure we would have talked some nonsense at some point, though maybe we had a deep philosophical conversation. We’ll never know for sure.

Heading out onto the streets of York in search of sustenance, we chose Harkers – a food pub that looked like it might meet the balance between dirt cheap and half decent. I opted for the beef and ale pie, which turned out to be one of those fake-pies that are a bowl with a huge piece of puff pastry on top. “No bother”, thinks I, and I begin to tuck in. After a bit of exploration I casually remark that there “isn’t a whole lot of beef in this pie”. I remove said pastry lid and swish my fork around in the sauce “actually, there’s no beef at all” – it’s an ale pie. Normally, being English, complaining about food feels like a strange and alien activity, always tinged with the fear that the staff will scoff and proclaim that “it’s supposed to be like that, you fucking idiot!” or something, but this time I felt safe in my assertion that all was not well. Steeling myself for combat I carried the offending dish back to the bar, took a deep breath and proudly asserted “um…there’s like, uh, no beef in this pie”. The waitress capitulated immediately, brought me a new one, and I ate it. Ironically the second one could have done with a bit more “ale”, but was otherwise beef-tastic.#

Later my arms nearly fell off from carrying the merch/my effects box across town, but they recovered by gig time. Sadly I didn’t get any insane nonsense from the sound engineer (see Ben’s blog) but had an entertaining time nonetheless – highlights including starting a two man wall of death during Mestle & Portar, poet Henry Raby transforming from affable compere to angry politico in the blink of an eye, reciprocating the mosh frenzy during Don’t Let Paris Fool You’s set (nearly being destroyed by Ben Marwood in the process) and witnessing Tom DLPFY’s artistic level of drunkenness – it was like he’d constructed an aqueduct of booze connecting his subconscious directly to his mouth, resulting in the kind of free-association rambling that would make Johnny Vegas give up and go work in a bank.

Afterwards we went back to the Travelodge for wild rock & roll party times, but as I tweeted at the time we “put all the hooker money in a parking meter thinking it was binoculars” earlier in the day, so made do with tv, rum, and then sleep.

DAY 6 – CHEZ TRIMBLE. In which we buy the world’s smallest bottles of whisky, then get drunk and play in a dining room.

MMmmm sleep, lovely sleep. Managing to tear ourselves away from the Travelodge’s opulent surroundings, I insist that we have a stroll around York before heading off to Nottingham. It’s fucking freezing cold though, so our stroll essentially is a walk around the block, about 20 minutes in The Whisky Shop (where I could easily have spent a few hundred quid on awesome booze, but decided that being able to afford food and bills was boringly more important) coming away with what are officially the world’s smallest bottles of whisky. Mine came in an “in emergency, break glass” style surround which I resolve to blu-tak in a prominent position when I get home.

Tonight is house-party night – originally mooted as a day off, but PAH: we laugh in the face of exhaustion^ so it’s to the outskirts of Nottingham to Gerry Trimble’s place to play to a handful of people I previously only know via the interwebs. Gerry kindly texted to ask whether there was anything we wanted food-wise as he was preparing a buffet; I checked my mental list of diva-esque demands, and selected for “a bag of salad to accompany the nibbles” and bless him, he obliged. Next time it’ll be a lifesized replica of the Venus de Milo constructed from blue smarties and haribo eggs, with a framed photo of Bob Holness – my rider gland has been stimulated.

The rest of the night is a bit of a blur – singalongs, hand clapping, collaborations, a chap called Rob being determined to bankrupt himself at the foot of our merch alter, and a rather comfy sofa to slip into unconsciousness on. Thanks Team Trimble!

DAY 7 – FARNSFIELD ACOUSTIC. In which we have the 2^nd shortest drive of the tour, I play the most unusual 20 minute set of my life, and I eat too many sandwiches, and we sip £4 Cava whilst watching/reciting Withnail & I. Warning – may contain traces of artistic self-doubt.

Nipping across town to Laura & Matt’s house, Ben and I have a conversation that vaguely resembles the following;

Me – So who are we staying with today?
Ben – My friend Laura.
Me – Ok, who’s that?
Ben – My friend from college, you met her when we played Nottingham before.
Me – Ohh yeah, I remember, cool.
Ben – We stayed at her house that time as well.
Me – Did we?
Ben – Yes.
Me – I…really?
Ben – Yes, remember?
Me – No. Was I drunk?
Ben – No, you drove.
Me – Um…really?
*Racks brain. Remembers gig. Remembers Laura & Matt. Draws blank on house*
Me – Nope, nothing.
Ben – You slept in the lounge, we watched TV.
*lists of a Father Ted-esque list of things that happened that I have zero recollection of, not quite culminating in “you were wearing your red jumper”, and not resulting in my memory doing anything remotely like flooding back.

Arriving at the house I expect things to fall into place, but they stubbornly refuse. I begin to worry about what might have happened that evening to cause such a huge repression of memory and begin to treat Ben with suspicion.

A trip to the pub for lunch plus a light stroll later and it’s off to Farnsfield – a small village outside Nottingham that has regular folk nights in its village hall.

I think it’s fair to say I was looking forward to this night with a sense of bemusement, wondering what its attendants would make of my shouty nonsense. Thankfully we arrive to friendly faces, warm welcomes, and a fridge full of beer and sandwiches. I soundcheck looking out at the rows of tables with a feeling that although this isn’t going to be within my comfort zone, but that comfort zones are for losers and I’m hardcore enough to take this unusual situation on and win. All feels brilliant until the houselights go off and I’m presented with a faceless black wall, pinpricked by some scattered tea lights, then I start to feel a wee bit uncomfortable, but make a go of it anyway with a comment of “Goodevening Farnsfield Acoustic – I’m led to believe that I’m pretty typical of the acts you have at these events” being met with knowing laughter. I play a setlist devoid of gratuitous metal screaming, and modify the word “shit” to a Hot Fuzz dvd extra-esque “silt” as I don’t want to pointlessly upset people for the sake of it. There’s applause between songs, and some amusing heckling from a voice that I’m guessing isn’t a regular to these events~ but I can’t help but feel that I’ve cheated myself out of a good time by not giving 100%. I mope about for a bit until Inlay, a trad-folk outfit, get to a song that has some weird timing and sounds remarkably metal at which point I perk up and realise that I’m being stupid – what was I expecting, people to throw over their tables and start moshing viciously?

Then Ben does his thing, we all jam on a couple of songs at the organiser Mike’s request, and I have a nice chat with some lovely people, then it’s back to Laura & Matt’s to drink a couple of surprisingly awesome £4 bottles of Cava, watch Withnail & I (which I had to force myself to stop talking along to after about 45 minutes) and then Marwood & I did our first double-bed share of the tour.

DAY 8 – SWINDON. In which I almost spoon Ben in the early hours of the morning, drive the scenic route, and nearly fall asleep onstage.

For once on this tour my body clock allows me a bit of a lie-in, though it finally giving in just when I’ll need it for the day at work tomorrow is typical of its selfishness. I wake up not fully remembering where I am as I see a person-shaped mass in the bed next to me and my left arm states its intention of initiating an embrace before my mind takes over and informs lefty that it’s Ben sleeping there, not Kat. Lefty felt a bit sheepish for a while, but seemed happy with me typing that so he must be over it by now.

We do the morning thing; Kev accepting the offer of tea at every opportunity like the fiend he is, then drive down the road for a bewildering choice of delicious looking sandwiches, and it’s fist figuratively meets tarmac again to head southwest to Swindon. I decide that I’ve had enough of motorways, so conspire against the satnav to find a route that will not leave me paralysed with grey boredom. This tactic doesn’t really work – I’ve pretty much had enough of driving by now, and as we approach Swindon I manage to ignore all manner of “YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TURN RIGHT INTO THE PETROL STATION” signs and cause a bit of a backlog by sitting with my indicator on, patiently waiting for a gap in the traffic so I can turn right into the petrol station. Therein Ben buys about 20 chocolate bars, and eats most of them in the 6 miles we have left to Swindon proper – I fear for his mental state at the point the sugar kicks in, and the subsequent sugar crash – then go to meet my mum for some dinner, I go for a Calzone as they are the most win type of pizza in the world ever. FACT.

Getting back to the venue I start to feel the fatigue of the last week stacking up on my shoulders, but am convinced that everything will be fine until our illustrious promoter and sound engineer Alex tells me that I’m being “a bit quiet for such a loud guy” and I worry that I may have fallen asleep with my eyes open or something. My set passes as I try to perk myself, and the lethargic Sunday night crowd, up a bit…failing slightly on both counts as I step off stage and realise that I definitely need to go to sleep straight away…………but can’t as I have Ben’s set to watch (not that it’s a chore of course, but at this moment in time I’d turn down a half hour consequence-free punch-David-Cameron’s-smug-face session for the opportunity to curl up and have at least 4 day’s sleep) and then have to drive home. Seriously, why did I ever learn to drive? To steal some wise words from Left Side Brain’s drummer Ryan “I think I might get myself banned”. Though sadly while he’d have 3 band members to take up the driving slack, I’d just have to start getting trains. Yuck. I managed to enjoy Ben’s set, have a chat to a couple of lovely people who’d enjoyed the gig, hug my Mum goodbye, and then slouch off to the car to attempt the drive home.

Sorry to end on another, almost identical, cliffhanger – and a slight downer as well, I’ve been hanging round with Ben for too long – but you’re really going to have to wait until next time to find out whether I made it home alive……………….

[imagine that Eastenders drum noise kicks in here]

*Coleridge reference ftw. Though I had to Wikipedia it to be sure, and I was going to write “postman” instead of “person from Porlock”.

**this is of course, utter lies – Jack couldn’t have been more apologetic and gifted me an Alcopop t-shirt at some point in the evening as well, I just like the idea of imagining such a lovely chap being pantomime evil.

***Though the answer is clearly b).

# Quite an outrageous tale eh? If anyone’s interested in the film rights then I’ll accept nothing less than a 6 figure sum; The Beef Pie That Had No Beef – surely a cinematic licence to print money?

^or at least snigger behind its back when it’s not looking.

~Me “Ben Marwood’s coming up later. Man “YAYYY MY NAME’S BEN!”. Me “I’m from Bristol”. Man “YAYYYYY SOUTH WEST YAAEHH CORNWALL!”. It was bring-your-own-booze though, so who can blame him? Plus we did talking afterwards and it turned out fine.

2011-01-25T08:32:00.000-08:00

Right then, a hell of a lot to catch up on (not least the sleep which even after an early night at home is still deeper in the red than Nick Clegg is telling us our country is) so let’s see how I get on.

If you read Tour Diary pt 1 then you’ll no doubt have been waiting with anticipation to see whether I made it home safely…………..well……………….drumroll: I DID! Go me. I did have to stop and sleep in the very last services before home, which is only about 20 minutes away – better lame than never I suppose.

After that drive of insanity I got up and went to work, and spent the day staring into space, borderline hallucinatory with fatigue, and even had to resort to spending my lunchbreak asleep on the floor of an unoccupied office – rock and roll, my friends, is the most glamourous thing in the entire world. Anyway, enough moaning; the tour continues;

DAY 3: BRISTOL. In which we go back to work during the day, have lots of people turn up to our gig, instigate mass singalongs, and then go home sweaty and boozy.

There’s a bit of pressure involved in playing a home-town gig on tour – the “will anyone turn up” factor is heightened, the desire to play well increases, the fear that simply everything will go wrong/turn out shit becomes all pervasive………… thankfully it was all unfounded as everything fell in to place to make it a great evening; Big Jeff rocked up at the start, openers Andy “100% Nan-Safe*” Price and Gaz Brookfield worked their magic, my set was 30 minutes of noisy fun (including a nicely ramshackle first outing of my album-closer All Done Bye Bye with Ben on 2^nd guitar/backing vocals, a rare** outing for Gold, and plenty of banterous nonsense ). I then grabbed some drink to enjoy Ben’s set, chatted a bit, and then went back to Castle Thief with Mrs Thief and Kev @editradio to put a few more beers into my face, make him about a million cups of tea, and watch The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer, which I promptly series linked before zonking out.

DAY 4: OXFORD. In which we pick up a new hire car, murder some people, eat ice cream, drink beer, and play darts (badly).

My hopes for a decent lie-in were dashed by my bodyclock’s insistence that I wake up alert at 8.30am sharp. Stupid bodyclock – didn’t you get the memo that I’m on tour now and must therefore revert to student levels of lie ins…no? Oh, ok then – you’re let off. Don’t let it happen again though you hear? However unfair my sleepytime woes were, they weren’t a patch on Kev being woken up at 5.30am by Monty (our cat) punching him in the face and meowing loudly. Poor Kev – if you see him, be sure to give him a hug.

Whilst waiting for the car hire company to pick me up (yep, we decided to save £25 by not keeping the car for the whole week – that’s how we roll) I watched an old sitcom on G.O.L.D (G.O.L.D!) called “Dear John” about a recently divorced man that was a strange mix of utterly awful and yet quite charming. I series linked that too, intrigued as to how it would develop.

A ring of the phone and it’s off to get car #2 – sadly not an estate this time (must’ve been a fluke upgrade) that doesn’t have an obvious nickname from its numberplate. We thought of one later on but then forgot it. We notice that it’s not a diesel, so have to work out a song to remind us not to put diesel in this time – how confusing.

Arriving in Oxford we stash our gear at G&D’s and head into town to wait for Ben to arrive, look at old buildings, and play “Lewis”…a game that chiefly consists of filming each other pretending to be dead for later splicing with clips from the actual TV series – it’s going to be the best thing ever/totally rubbish. I think my death was the most convincing…up until the point where I started laughing. Later a local friend turned up and took us to a pub where they used to shoot Morse – I’m impressed but have never seen Morse, we’re a strictly Lewis household***.

Ben turns up (hello Ben!) and we go to Nandos for dinner – I have never been to Nandos before. Ben & Kev warn me off the hot sauce, but I sample some on a chip; it tastes pretty good. I proceed to pour loads of the stuff on my plate and mop it up with my medium-strength chicken quarter. They are impressed – I think I have established myself as the alpha male of this tour. GET IN.

Then it’s off to G&D’s for an unusual, but lovely gig in an ice cream café during which I cause a couple of older patrons to leave, am studiously ignored by some Japanese students, and nearly bring the entire building down on my head with an ill advised double foot stomp. Then we got free ice cream; yeah, you should be jealous. After Ben’s set Jack Alcopop and I take the gear back to his & head to the nearest pub – which closes about 10 minutes later. A quick game of darts later (I lose the game spectacularly using my nice darts, then have a quick throw with the shitty pub darts and score a cool 100 - wtf?) we decamp to the Oxford institution that is The Jamaican/Hi-Lows.

Therin Ben is harassed by a strange man, we discuss street carnivals with the landlady, and the landlord shouts at people who fail to enter the bar using the correct airlock-like door procedure. Thankfully the atmosphere stays constant throughout , and I make a mental note to come back here as soon as possible before we stroll back out into the night at around 2am…with Jack needing to be up for work at 7am. Ouch.

THANKS JACK!

More tomorrow, I'm off for a nap..............

Tour diary - part 1, take 2

2011-01-18T06:57:00.000-08:00

I say “take 2” because I already wrote about 80% of a tour diary for the first two dates of my tour with Ben Marwood but then managed to press some previously unknown keyboard shortcut which not only deleted everything I’d written whilst simultaneously disabling the blessed Ctrl+Z combo, but also autosaved the emptiness ensuring that there was absolutely no way back. That’s why I’m now typing this in Word 2007 (yeah, Windows XP – take that Apple fanzoids) and planning on copy and pasting back in.

In the meantime Ben has written his own account of the last two days which his being a failed music journalist ™ means that it’s already far more entertaining than anything I could write*, but hey ho: here goes.

DAY 1: in which I drive from Bristol to Leeds via Reading, make noise, listen to words, and drink tea until almost breakfast time.

The drive to Leeds began with the picking up of our first hire car – a bright spangly new silver Astra that we later nicknamed “Juicy Lucy” due to it (her?) having a number plate that ended in “JCY”…that’s the level of intellect we’re dealing with here people. Being somewhat surprised by the epic bootspace, and terrified by the newness of it all, I departed onto the M4 and studiously began staring at the fuel consumption display…herein to be referred to as the OCDometer; 40mpg…60mpg…999.99mpg…this thing was clearly not to be trusted, let alone stared at in lieu of looking at the actual road, but some quick mathematics suggested that if I drove at the optimum speed then we might actually have a chance of not going bankrupt through diesel costs on this tour. HOORAY!

After picking up Ben and our tour pet Kevin (who is making video and audio documents of the week and presumably putting them on www.editradio.co.uk at some point) we made our way to Leeds, with a quick stop at our first services of the tour**, and prepared to “do our thing”.

The gig was a delight from opener, err, Open Invitation, through to my first Ben Marwood set of 2011, via clever/funny/thought provoking wordage from the newly christened Fear of Cardigans and Suzannah Evans (@nightowlpoet). Plans were mooted, suggestions made, but in the end a combination of migraine and proximity meant that we ended up drinking tea at Peter and Nicola’s house until the early hours of the morning, at which point I transformed from rock beast to taxi driver and took everyone home. Because I’m nice. To be honest, it was the perfect end to the evening – much as I love watching Ben Marwood screaming System of a Down lyrics into the face of strangers at The Cockpit, I was dreading the thought of Day #2’s million mile/hour drive so the prospect of doing it with an epic hangover was worrying to say the least. We still stayed up till 3.30am though, so that technically means we’re still hardcore right?

DAY 2 MOTHERLOVERS: in which I drive from Cheltenham to Leeds, listen to some BRILLIANT music in the car, make noise, fail to sell any merch (but we still love you Cheltenham) and then I go home….via Reading.

My body clock gently brings me back to life at 9am, having had 5.5 hours sleep, and refuses to let me go back to sleep despite not needing to be up for another 3 hours. The bastard. I do read some blogs and then doze for a little while, so not all is lost. Then we have an epic breakfast of tea, orange juice, lovely jam, more tea, grilled pig products, and gather our thoughts and possessions ready to leave. Oh and we also spend some time reading from The Mystery Method, a “how to have sex with ladies” manual that only stops slightly short of suggesting you batter them unconscious with the hardback edition and have your way with them before they wake up***. We also check out the related internet forum which makes manages to make me both giggle like an idiot, yet feel compellingly embarrassed on behalf of the entire heterosexual contingent of my gender. A bit like Men Behaving Badly.

After stupidly putting our/my trust in the OCDometer when the amount of miles it said we should be able to do nicely coincided with the number of miles to Cheltenham, and therefore very nearly running out of diesel# about half a mile away from the venue. Thank the sweet baby Jesus~ for the Tesco Pay at Pump system.

Our eventual arrival at Slak was heralded by the rolling down of our windows and the pumping out of the Karate Kid soundtrack like 80s obsessed rude bois. It was fun. Then we went for food and due to the cruel hand of fate wishing to poke me in the eye, I ended up with some rubbish boil-in-the-bag filth sneezed onto my plate while everyone else had a huge chunk of roast chicken. Taking pity on my sulking face, Ben came to the rescue and gave me a load of chicken : WOO HOO!

Anyway, gig itself was super – Ben on devastating banterous form, we both got a bit of a singalong going, and I made an off the cuff crack about Intelligent Design that made some people laugh, making me the Robin Ince to Ben's Stewart Lee. Oh yeah I managed to sweat out pretty much all of the moisture from my body as well…the benchmark has been well and truly set for self-disgust my friends.

Jim Lockey brought us a set of almost exclusively new songs, all of which sounded great and have been in my head ever since, and we sat around putting our best puppy dog faces on in the hope that people would buy our merch – they didn’t, Joe Summers’ poster purchase aside.

Still, Cheltenham is so officially awesome that we don’t even care - we’ll be back for more of their enthusiasm and charm.

Then we set off for the ultimate drive of doom: CheltenhamàReadingàBristol. Did I make it back in one piece? Did I have to have a half hour nap at a service station just 20 minutes from home? You’ll have to wait until the next instalment to find out.............................

*I’m presuming he failed by virtue of being able to write prose that both informed and entertained the reader in equal measure, as opposed to being a self-aggrandising pseudo-omniscient tosshole that touts whatever crap 80’s aping claptrap he’s been paid the most to espouse as the future of music ™.

**Donnington Park – which was impressively the first service station I ever saw an M&S in back in the day, but now looks quaint compared to all the Waitrose and Harrods ones these days.

***Case in point “if the woman says ‘we should stop’ you should reply ‘yeah we should stop’…but don’t actually stop”. Maybe it’s the Julian Assange guide to sweet lovin’…………

#we wrote a little ditty in the car to remind us that it was a diesel engine…which we then promptly forgot. It featured the words “it’s a diesel, diesel, DIESEL” over and over again though, so while the tune is gone forever, the message isn’t.

~who resides somewhere in Mexico I’m told.

HAPPY NEW BEER!

2011-01-10T01:48:00.000-08:00

2011 seems to be about deadlines and countdowns so far;

Tour starts Saturday (see the last post for dates) which will be fun with a capital FUCK YEAH. Ben Marwood and I are playing 10 dates around the country, packed into a rented car with our pal Kevin.
Digital single is planned for March, which entails getting my writing arse on and working on some new b-sides. Oh and I should be going down to Falmouth to make a video with my friend Rob of www.littlemanfilms.co.uk, coming soon(ish) to a Youtube near you.
Album is keeping its fingers crossed for an April release, so think it's just artwork to be finished off along with a re-jigging of one of the track's introductions as it's proving pretty much impossible to get in touch with the people who made Withnail & I to ask if it would be ok to use some of Uncle Monty's words of wisdom (if anyone happens to know Richard E. Grant then please let me know).
NEW MERCH! Which needs to be done before the tour via the third part of my increasingly fractured personality SewFuckingWhat. This consists of a scarf emblazoned with "Oxygen Thief is louder than you" and a special tour-only hat that has "OT FTW" on one side, and "BM FTW" on the other. Ben also has one that reads "Property of Ben Marwood" which most people will probably assume is a clever joke, but in actual fact he will still legally own the scarf after you've paid him money for it, and will pinch it back off you if he gets chilly. Let that be a warning to you. I'll post photos later this week.
That's all for bullet points.

Bye!

TOUR!

2010-12-16T16:14:00.001-08:00

Hello you, I've a question for you: How in the hell is it nearly Christmas?

Honestly, I swear it should only just be approaching September or something......not nearly 2011. I blame that David Cameron, he's probably made sweeping cuts to the amount of time we get in a year now and all. The complete and utter James Hunt (Culture Secretary).

Anyway, looking forward to the new year - here's some dates I'm heading out on tour with the magnificent Ben Marwood, who will be releasing his debut album via Xtra Mile Recordings (home to Frank Turner, Chris T-T, The Xcerts, Beans On Toast) and who was name-checked on track 2 of Mr Turner's new Rock & Roll EP. All together now "HERE'S TO MARWOOOOOOD!":

15th Leeds Cardigan Arms
16th Cheltenham Slak (w/Jim Lockey)
18th Bristol Louisiana
19th Oxford G&D's Ice Cream Cafe
20th York City Screen Basement Bar
22nd Farnsfield (nr Notts) Farnsfield Acoustic
23rd Swindon The Vic
28th Reading Rising Sun Arts Centre (w/Quiet Quiet Band)
29th Birmingham Bright House (w/Quiet Quiet Band and more TBC)
30th London Wilmington Arms

We're still looking for something to do for the 21st in the Nottingham/Derby/Leicester area, so give us a shout if you want us to come and make noise in your venue/pub/lounge/basement yeah? Ace.

Progress on my own album is still trundling ever onwards, with the final stages of audio tweaking underway, and artwork being furiously scribbled as I type. Not by me, obviously, as that would require an extra pair of hands. Not to mention a significant improvement of my ability to draw anything more complex than a stickman. Or a phallus. Or a stickman with a phallus.

Cheers for now, keep warm.

OT

Amazon in Wiimote Racism Shock

2010-11-23T08:02:00.000-08:00

I AM IN SHOCK;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wii-Party-Remote-Controller-White/dp/B003SE6TQY/ref=sr_1_2?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1290527524&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wii-Party-Remote-Controller-Black/dp/B0049RZQ9A/ref=pd_sim_vg_h__6

and a screengrab for posterity;

Destroy It Yourself......99.9% done?

2010-11-17T08:39:00.000-08:00

Yeah, let's say that - recording and mixing is finished, mastering is underway, artwork is about to be created, and the route to getting it on sale has been programmed into the SatNav.

Talking of artwork, I've just been typing up the lyrics to see if any particular images leap at me screaming "Get Joe to draw me!" and I've noticed a bunch of references, quotes, and paraphrases that I'd either forgotten about or did entirely by accident (though let's all just pretend that I'm clever and worked them in on purpose yeah?).

These include, in no particular order;

Constantin Stanislavksi
Morrissey - Every Day Is Like Sunday
The Wire
The X-Files
My Dad
Django Reinhart
Home Alone 2
A song by Desaparecidos

Things that look like they might be referenced but aren't:
Star Wars (well, it's a reference of a reference - which isn't as pretentious as that sounds)
That mobile phone advert that uses a song by The Mae Shi

Destroy It Yourself: 85% done?

2010-08-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

After such a long time since doing any work on the album (19 days?) due to flu, work, and a stag trip to Amsterdam......I didn't think a tweet or two would really do as far as an update was concerned.

It's weird not having listened to it for all that time - the bipolar love/hate that I always feel for anything I'm working on gives way to a sinking dread that it might all be so totally awful that it's beyond rescue.......I keep wondering whether the constant little delays are actually some subconscious insecurities taking hold and putting it off for fear that, shock horror, anyone else should listen to it and realise it's all a pile of crap.

But then I load up the files, flick through, twiddle with some virtual nobs (hehe) and suddenly I start to remember why I thought it would be a good idea to record this in the first place: a riff triggers that little switch off in the back of my neck.......a refrain lodges itself in my brain........I feel my emotions swell in a way that's normally reserved for other people's music.................which makes me feel a whole lot better, if a little arrogant (I suppose Modesty isn't entirely Dead after all).

So back to that figure of 85% - I'm sure I've bandied such things around before, but I feel a lot more justified in putting that on now. I have a few overdubs to do, some vocal corrections here...a guitar improvement there....a mispronunciation to rectify, and then I really think it'll be ready. Gosh.

Just need to sort artwork and mastering, then it's onto the winding road of actually getting it released. Fun times.

Sneaky peaks? Soon, I promise.

New website...

2010-08-21T04:59:00.000-07:00

...........about time eh?

Now to get that album finished..........

"Please give me an album that I love straight away, that I don't have to grow into, after constant play"

2010-08-04T05:22:00.000-07:00

"See I buy alot of records, but take most of them back, cause I feel they dissapoint me, after just one track"

So sang Jamie Lenman on "Crushed Under The Weight Of The Enormous Bullshit"*

I've been feeling somewhat similar over the past few years - though in not quite such jaded terms as there have been plenty of albums that I've become obsessed by recently* - but it's only really on downloading and listening to the reissued "Understanding Music" by AC Acoustics*** other day and giving it a proper solid listen in the sunshine, and putting it on again just now, that has made me realise why: digital music has made me impatient and fickle in my musical habits.

In the days when I listened to minidisks, or cassettes, I'd have 2 -5 albums on me at any one time, so when walking to uni, driving to work, catching a train, I would have a finite amount of music to listen to; I'd listen to the same album dozens of times in a week. Now I have 32Gb of storage space, and access to a subscription download service where I can legally pluck any album out of the ether at will, listen to it at, and then move onto the next one.

I find myself doing just that - endlessly gorging at an all-you-can-eat buffet, not noticing that I'm getting fat, unfit, and undernourished as I search for an ever greater quantity, and an ever newer flavour, not stopping to savour and thoroughly digest, suffering the ensuing heartburn that such behaviour inevitably incites.****

So I've come to a conclusion: though I will still download***** new albums by the dozen, I'll be more methodical in my listening habits...maybe choosing 3 or 4 albums that I'll listen to per week, repeating on a loop until I've really got something out of them other than the instant gratification from boredom that this musical snacking has provided.

In that spirit then, this week's listening will mainly feature:

AC Acoustics - Understanding Music
Mclusky - Mclusky Do Dallas
Oceansize - Everyone Into Position

Rock on

----------------
* ironically enough considering the reception that album received (especially from someone like me who sorta skim-listened to it, choosing my favourite songs and generally skipping through the rest without much more thought).

**Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up Til It Was Light, Future of the Left - Curses, Alestorm - Black Sails At Sunset (silly I know, but incredible), to name but a few.

***Sorry for all these bits - have been reading Stewart Lee's "How I Escaped My Certain Fate" which possibly contains more footnotes than actual text.

****Part of me wants to take the gastronomic metaphor further to include the other end of the process.......but it's nearly lunchtime and I don't want to put myself off my lunch with talk of the musical equivalent of excreting waste products. Damn, just did.

*****Legally, of course. Or is that taken as read now? It still feels slightly like stealing, even though it's all completely above board.

Destroying It Yourself - album recording diary (of sorts)

2010-03-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

So I've finally set to work getting my first proper album up together...its working title is "Destroy It Yourself" as those are literally the only words that my brain doesn't immediately reject when I think about naming the beast...plus it's quite apt for the way I do things; recording, engineering, producing (ish), it all on my own.

I've tried doing recording blogs before, but whereas bands in studios tend to have lots of interesting things and adventures to write about the studio/city/country they're in, or can have one member writing/editing and uploading video whilst the others work hard...it's kinda difficult to do that when you are sat in your home studio* doing endless takes, on the fly mixing, and hoping that your fingernail doesn't completely disintegrate / 9 month old kitten doesn't spack out and ruin all the guitar takes by meowing outside my door / computer doesn't fall in half and lose everything..........that's more or less the beginning and end of my adventures.

Oh and the occasional stroppy "THIS ALL SOUNDS LIKE FUCKING SHIT" impulse that makes you want to burn down the entire neighbourhood just so that you can have a valid excuse for not recording anymore & not letting anyone hear what you have done so far.

But a few technical issues, broken strings, and the gradually disappearing right index fingernail aside I think things are going pretty well - I have 8 songs (out of about 15...11 of which will end up on the album) guitar-ready, and waiting for my voice to feel like it's ready to roar, as opposed to the croaking it seems to be fond of at the moment.

I did have to rerecord everything I'd done at one point mind.......not due to stroppiness, but because I changed my miking technique from L-R stereo miking, to near/far (wherever you are) which sounded an absolute fuckload better. As well as the mics, there's also a DI going from my guitar pickup, which is adding a nice (ie: nasty) edge to it as well. Couple that with the fact that each song has two guitar takes, with the far mic and DI hard panned left and right for each take, and the near mic panned to 50%, and it's sounding pretty ace when turned up loud at the moment.

It doesn't sound quite as good turned down quiet...but then again who wants to listen to music quietly? Especially my sort of stuff.

So yeah, that's probably all there is to say from the last 3 weeks of work (and one week of sickness, bleurgh). If you want more up to date stuff then I'm hashtagging my tweets with #destroyityourself before/during/after each recording session, so you can see what I'm thinking there.

Looking forward to sharing this when it's all done.

*read: spare bedroom.

Testing AGAIN

2010-02-02T13:21:00.001-08:00

Same drill here, get lost buster.

Testing something out

2010-02-02T13:11:00.001-08:00

Yeah, nothing to see here. Stop reading.

What are you doing, just go somewhere else ok? For fuck's sake, just leave me alone....

New songs gig = done

2010-01-27T06:51:00.000-08:00

I played a gig where all the songs were new, it's the first time I've done anything like that and it was an interesting new experience that I'll definitely repeat in future. Though maybe I'll leave out the bit where my guitar totally stops working.....

setlist:

Show 'Em Who's Boss
Makoto Nagano
Mestle & Portar*
See You Later Procreator
Terry Nutkins Salute
Nice Night For A Neck Injury (including eric** guitar failure)
Disaster Plan
Languages Our Specialism
Words On Walls***
Modesty Is Dead***

surprisingly all of that fitted into 30 minutes, even with the guitar malfunction - writing shorter songs ftw.

*as a side note, had the hideous realisation dawn on me that a bit in the chorus might be (ok, definitely is) quite similar to a riff found in Left Side Brain's "Well Well Well". Riff-thief. Looks like there's a little re-working to do...
**trawl through twitter.com/oxygenthiefyeah for the in-joke there
***ok, not "new" songs as I've been playing them for about a year...but newer than the last ones recorded anyway

Free music headfuck

2010-01-25T06:32:00.000-08:00

I won a new phone recently in a competition on Twitter, which was quite nice.

What made it really properly exciting though was the fact that said phone "Comes With Music" - essentially a 12 month long completely free, all-you-can-eat download fest of music, limited apparently only by the constraints of the Nokia store (which seems pretty far reaching at the moment...my split album with Jim Lockey & Ben Marwood is on there for starters) and the 32gb of memory that's crammed into the phone itself (though you can also download to the pc as well).

What's more, when the 12 months runs out I'll still be able to listen to this music on my phone (if I haven't lost/destroyed/eaten it by then) on my computer or, get this, on any cd copies that I've burned of the music that I have downloaded.

If you don't have the magic free music download thing then you can still download music from Nokia's website, at what looks like the same sort of price (79p per track) as you would get on iTunes.

My brain is melting with delight and confusion: I can legally download as much music as I want........and keep it forever.............and somehow the bands still get paid royalties for this?

But how much do they actually get? As I understand it, a chunk of the retail price of the phone itself goes towards paying for the music that people download...but I can't imagine these "purchases" count in the same way towards paying royalties to artists as someone paying in full would, that would be madness.

So would it be wrong of me to spend the next 12 months downloading every past album I could possibly ever want from this service, and then never spending any money on albums again (aside from ones that come out from 2011 onwards)?

It feels wrong, but then again I still haven't truly "got" the idea of paying to download music anyway - I do it, occasionally, but I don't feel like I actually "own" anything until I've got a physical item in my hands.......that I then immediately rip to my mp3 player and leave on the shelf to gather dust until I need to drive somewhere and realise my battery is flat so nab it for the journey and my girlfriend puts it back in the wrong case and I end up scouring through all my cds trying to find it. Grr.

I'm guessing that I'll end up using it in the same way I've used illegal downloads over the past few years* - to check out something I've been recommended, which I'll then go out and buy later on. And go to a gig. And buy t-shirts and hats and posters and badges and stickers and records.

Which brings me to wondering whether this would be a viable plan for the future - eliminate piracy by making all music completely free to download, and limit the licence so that you can only play the songs on one pc/one portable device...or possibly have it as a time-limited licence which you will then have to pay to extend to being permenant, or to be able to copy to different devices. Or you could be proper old fashioned and buy a cd :)

Maybe it's just a nice dream, but already in the 24 hours I've had this subscription I've downloaded & listened to albums by The Melvins, Them Crooked Vultures' album, Fantomas, & Kyus...all of which have been on my "to do" list for varying amounts of time, but that I've not had the spare cash to buy...but will probably be doing so now at some point this year.

Right, I'm off to eat tinned peaches, download some Peaches, and probably Peaches and Peaches as well.

OT

*yeah I know, I'm a prick and I'm killing music. But stop reading this footnote and you'll see that I have an explanation ready that I think more than justifies any nefarious activities.

2009 is dead. Long live 2010

2010-01-19T06:57:00.003-08:00

Blimey I'm crap at this blogging lark - it's been what, 6 months since the last one? Naughty Thief, must try harder.

So it's a new year, a new decade, and with all that come the traditional slew of resolutions and expectations for making improvements and progress that all too often fall by the wayside.

I'm pretty sure, for instance, that I decided I was going to blog about every gig I played last year........failed that one for a start. I only remembered that about a week into January and considered starting again, but I've already missed one so that's doomed before it even starts really.

But let's stop focussing on the negatives - a whole bunch of positive shit happened last year, including two major resolutions of mine:

1) Having a proper commercial release - achieved through the medium of Exclamation At Asterisk Hash, a split ep with the wonderful Ben Marwood and Jim Lockey, thanks to the and the good people of Broken Tail & Josaka, which despite Amazon and Play.com's best efforts managed to make its way into many a home over the summer.

Not got a copy yet? Why I outtta.....recommend you go here immediately and get a copy: http://snipurl.com/u4knq

2) Touring with a bill of likeminded boozehounds - again thanks to Jim & Ben this aim was securely ticked off my "to do" list............previous tours have always been a bit of a mixed bag of opening slots, acoustic nights, and random headliners dotted around the place, so it was such an awesome experience to be able to spend each night out watching two great performers do their thing......even if the resultant perpetual hangover turned me into a horrible moaning bastard every day at 5pm sharp.

1,000+ miles later these two already great pals have firmly been engrained into my being - like Spock and McCoy in Star Trek II (or is it III?) - and should one of them ever expire from an radiation overdose in a space exploration vessel, I fully expect to go a bit mad before scouring a newly terriformed planet in search of their reanimated corpse.

And if that isn't friendship, I don't know what is.

Head to Youtube for video evidence of how much sheer fun that week was.

Of course, whilst probably not quite worthy of such insane ramblings (yet), huge showers of respect and appreciation and thanks and other such gushing will have to be aimed squarely at the Lexapalooza family of organisers, performers and attendees (Evan, Dani, Frank, Chris, Dan, Pete, Paul, Anna-M, Ravi, Jay...and everyone who yelled "GOLD" really loud), everyone at Two Thousand Trees Festival, the !@*# tourettes (Kevin, Jacqui, Mr Addis, Winnie, Stan), to Johnny Foreigner and Tubelord for putting up with my relentless mission to always support them everytime they come to Bristol (and in the former's case for probably being a bit of a scary fanboy).

And of course a special mention has to go to Mrs Thief for yet another year of me heading out of the door without washing up, and coming in late and waking her with well meaning, yet ill advised tipsy greetings.

Here's to this year...which is already nearly 1/12 gone. Fucking hell.

I'll leave your strained eyes (and with all this rambling, probably minds as well) with a list of upcoming gigs - see you there :)

OT

Tuesday 26th January - New songs only gig @ The Louisiana
Friday 5th February - The Frog & Fiddle, Cheltenham
Saturday 6th February - House party, Treforest
Sunday 7th February - The Angel, Aberystwyth
Monday 8th February - Ten Feet Tall, Cardiff
Thursday 11th February - Peewees, Trowbridge
Thursday 25th February - Mandela Bar, Bristol University

Tuesday 9th March - Mother's Ruin, Bristol w/Chris T-T

then it's album recording time......woo!

--------------------------------------------
Currently listening to:

Thrice - Beggars
Left Side Brain - Collider
Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain

Reading:
Douglas Coupland - Shampoo Planet
www.richardherring.com/warmingup
Mike Mignola - Hellboy
Luna Brothers - The Sword (Image Comics)

Watching:
Lost - Season 5
Day of the Triffids (BBC version 2009)

The Artist Formerly Known As Plinth

2009-10-14T05:40:00.000-07:00

So, Anthony Gormley's One&Other project has finished - 100 days, and 2,400 people later it's all over........I didn't realise I would be ushering in the final 24 hours of the event with my slot yesterday morning at 9am, but I am honoured to have been chosen to participate.

I would like to say a huge thanks to everyone who came along to watch, to everyone who watched the live stream, and to those who had a gander later on.

If you've still not seen it, it's available via http://www.oneandother.co.uk/participants/oxygenthief ........I don't know how long it'll be up there, so enjoy it while it lasts!

I'm pretty knackered now and looking at the next week or so there doesn't seem to be any time to take it easy and recuperate, so if anyone has access to some sort of sleep-based time machine that I could pop myself into tonight & receive the equivalent of a month of early nights then I'm willing to pay you upwards of £30 for the priviledge of borrowing it.

Tour video diary parts 10 & 11 - the end!

2009-10-07T01:24:00.000-07:00

here it is - the last installment of our tour video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry-DlQe7Hh4

Tour video diary part 9

2009-10-06T01:28:00.001-07:00

Tour video diary parts 7 & 8

2009-10-05T04:37:00.000-07:00

Day 7

Day 8 - in which our racist expectations of the people of Newcastle are all confirmed...

New guitar?

2009-10-01T07:55:00.001-07:00

I've just accidentally started trying to haggle down the price of a sexy new guitar (http://pictures.kyozou.com/pictures/_7/6010/6009019.jpg) that I'm hoping to get from a shop just up the road near Gloucester.

This place has it for around £430, other online stores have it £495. I already thought I was getting a bargain.

However, local shop doesn't have it in stock at the moment...so out of curiosity/boredom I emailed the £495 ones and said "could you beat this other shop?" not really expecting anything.

£495 shop says "ok, how's about £399 delivered"

Well, I'm torn now between the desire to try and buy from a small local dealer (something I believe is especially important considering the current economic climate*) and the desire to save myself enough money for a really nice bottle of whisky.

So, I emailed the £430 one saying "well, this other place will do it for £399 now...what do you reckon?"

They've said they'll see what they can do...

I feel a bit bad now, £430 isn't a bad price and the bloke in the shop seemed really nice......I bet he has little hungry children, and gives a chunk of his profits to a donkey sanctuary and because of my desire to save money they're all going to starve to death.............I'm going to hell.

.
...
.....
.......
.........

Ah sod it there's no such place, and if they match the cheaper price I'll probably spend that money on strings/picks/a cable/a new capo in his shop anyway............so everyone's a winner

*I hate myself for typing these words.

Tour video diary part 6

2009-09-23T04:42:00.001-07:00

Tour Diary - day 5

2009-09-13T07:52:00.001-07:00

Tour video diary part 4

2009-09-10T10:17:00.001-07:00

I have a stupid laugh...

Tour video diary part 3

2009-09-07T05:00:00.000-07:00

Tour video diary part 2

2009-09-04T15:14:00.001-07:00

Tour video diary pt 1

2009-09-04T01:37:00.000-07:00

We are all dead

2009-08-22T02:13:00.001-07:00

Ah man what has happened to us? Anyone would think that 9 days in a row playing gigs+drinking booze until we either fall over or fall asleep is somehow not the best way to maintain a healthy demeanour. Jim is zonked out in the car, whilst Ben and I have a staring competiton with the floor. It's hangovers like this that make me understand why people become religious - never again is the refrain that we're quite tempted to make right now. But we won't of course - we'll drive to Reading for our day off, go to sleep, and then get right back on it again. 'Sometimes the only way to get back on the horse is to tie yourself to the fucking saddle' wise words young Marwood, wise wise horrifying words.

!@*#ing tour diary - day 3

2009-08-16T05:26:00.000-07:00

It's so hot here nobodycanbreathe and all we want is some a i r
but there's none, and when we open the windows there are bikers trying to climb in and belly dance at us, and noise from a gazebo of musical happenings that has been set up purely to distract from our fun, and the road is closed so I had to park miles away and then we propped a window open using a pint glass and then BRENT opened it (despite Kev's slow motion "noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!") and it fell down to the ground and smashed in the middle of some hells angels who didn't turn out to be that happy about it.

And then it stayed hot.

But at least we had some music to entertain us (and beer, the more you drink, the less not being able to breathe seems to matter) : thanks to everyone who played, and everyone who listened, and those Hells Angels for not killing us all.

!@*#ing tour diary - days 1+2

2009-08-14T03:47:00.000-07:00

Day 1 started in the most rocking of all ways : installing a washing machine at home. The dream is being well and truly lived ladies and gentlemen.

DIY done, gear loaded, obsessively checked and rechecked to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything (and then checked again just to be on the safe side) it's road time.

The next 5 hours pass in a blur of Tesco bbq ribs, traffic jams, fruitless hunts for interesting whisky, and lustful browsing through the biggest music shop ever + then it's finally time - gig #1 of the tour.

To say that Reading was a fun night would be like saying that the weather has been a bit changable recently - both totally accurate, but a bit of an understatement : sing-a-longs, stage invasions, Shine 7 being the prime source of dj material (WELL I CAN'T TAKE IT, TOO MUCH TIME'S BEEN WASTED ahh), and hanging around with the progressively more destroyed Josaka crew.

Bonus points also to sir Winship for being possibly the drunkest person in a room packed with really quite drunk folks.

Heading back to Ben's for post mortem whisky and beer, the last 30 minutes of Dracula 2000 (what...it was Judas all along? Vampire necks are made of grass? WHATTHEHELLISGOINGON?) untill we gradually passed out watching someone excitingly swimming lengths on the Big Brother live feed.

Andthenitwasday2 - in which Jim felt like death warmed up, frozen, partially thawed out, and then kicked down a spiral staircase...we fed ourselves bacon bought from the proceeds of last night's merch sale (thank you Readingites) and lounged around watching Murder She Wrote (the bus driver did it...twice) and Monk (who said OCD couldn't be fun?).

Our daytime whittled away with detective shows and pig flesh (oh and Jim pausing to give God a quick ring from the big white telephone) we drove the winding roads to Devizes well aided by the skills of DJ Ben "random play all" Marwood, played the most tedious, yet profitable, quiz/fruit machine ever, and then ate fish and chips by the lake. Romantic eh?

The show was an open mic affair, with each of us getting 2 x 3 song sets...I have to admit that I was initially a bit dubious about how that would rank on the awesome scale, but it soon proved itself to be a great way to spend an evening - play some tunes, sit and have a drink and a chat, play some more, repeat.

To add to that, the unparalleled generosity of both sir Boom of FT board fame, and sir Stan of Lockey, deserves a spontaneous standing ovation - you guys are great.

Later we drive home to Bristol after, with a bounty of cans of 6X and a bottle of Bushmills sat waiting patiently in the boot for their chance to entertain us, Ben orders pizza, and we channel hop the night away before reluctantly remembering that some pillock* decided that it'd be clever to set tomorrow's gig up as an all dayer, and so we'd have to be up and out of the house in 7 hours. What a dick.

*ok, it was me

Tour soon!

2009-08-02T14:35:00.001-07:00

Wow, the tour is starting in just over 1 week. My plans of getting a bit fitter in preparation have fallen a little flat a) by getting really drunk a bunch of times (2000 Trees + the Aftermath being notable cases) and then b) getting swine flu. Balls. Still suffering a bit, but will hopefully get better in time to have another couple of jogs, do a few pressups, and get slightly more in shape, ready for 11 days on the road drinking whisky and making noise. Can't wait, this is going to be awesome

Education Fail

2009-07-01T05:49:00.001-07:00

Yeah, gibberish or double dutch perhaps

Here comes the bride

2009-06-30T05:51:00.001-07:00

T minus 4 days till awesome Dr Owen gets married + my coversong learning duties end for the summer. I've really enjoyed doing this + taking part in people's big days, but I'm also itching to get to work on some new songs, polish up + record some older 'new' ones that I've never got round to playing live, and generally throw myself headfirst into rock action for the summer. I'm playing in Bristol on 29th July, which will (as well as being an ace night with some great bands) act as a warm up for the !@*# tour. Think I'll set a target - 3 new songs that night?

Swindon!

2009-06-18T17:20:00.001-07:00

Holy crap that was fun - just got in + am enjoying a well deserved beer and one of the several million episodes of Quantum Leap sitting on my Sky+ box. People of Swindon, you sure love yelling the word 'Gold' - sorry for laughing like a cretin each time, it was just too fucking good for words. Brilliant. Couldn't think of a better way to start the Ben/Jim/me tour fun.

Woo!

2009-06-02T16:32:00.001-07:00

Split album arrived today, bloody awesome. 1 month, 1 week till release day...can't wait

Damned right he's not

2009-05-22T09:23:00.001-07:00

I refuse to be exploited...

OFFICIAL PAGE!

2009-05-21T06:41:00.001-07:00

I bloody love it when not-very-good bands add you on Myspace, and it states at the top "THIS IS THE OFFICIAL PAGE OF -notverygoodband-"

As if there's ever going to be an unofficial page ;)

OT*

*officially

2009-05-14T05:49:00.001-07:00

Oxygen Thief supports Johnny Foreigner, releases a cd, and lives happily ever after...

2009-04-21T02:21:00.001-07:00

Morning all - exciting times are a-coming, so an action packed update for you all.

Firstly - I'm opening for Johnny Foreigner + Tubelord on 11th May @ The Cooler, Bristol.

For those of you unaware of the JF amazingness, they're pretty much the best UK band around at the moment - huge tunes, big intricate guitars, exciting upbeat songs about going out and getting drunk...just brilliant.

Tickets are 8quid online/more on the door BUT I've bagged a limited number at a mere 5quid each - bargain or what?
If you want in, email back + I'll sort out paypal/cheques/addresses etc. It's gona be ace.

Myspace.com/johnnyforeigner
Myspace.com/tubelord

Go treat your ears.

Next up - my split CD with Ben Marwood and Jim Lockey finally has a release date: Monday 13th July.

It's a bit different the the usual split CDs in that the 9 tracks are all interwoven, rather than having our songs seperated into 3 song batches...so Ben's fragmented folk, Jim's country tinged acoustica, and my demented rantings all intermingle, copulate, and stagger off into the night together to gaze at the stars (and set fire to deserted buildings). It rocks.

It'll be available from download sites, online retailers, and a bunch of shops too (if there are any left by then). Preorder details to follow a bit closer to the time...

Songs will be uploaded to myspace etc soon, and it'll be on the wonderous Spotify as well after release, so keep yr eyes peeled.

Myspace.com/benmarwoodmusic
Myspace.com/jimlockey

Enjoy.

Lastly, there's a bunch of tour dates up at www.myspace.com/oxygenthief - from London's Lexapalooza in June, a few north eastern dates with Ben Marwood in July, to a 13 date UK tour with both Ben + Jim in August, I'll be rocking in a town near you sometime over the next few months.

So to summarise - come see me+JoFo on May 11th, save up yr pennies to buy the split on July 13th, and come to a tour date in the summer.

Ace - cu soon.

OT

Currently listening to:
Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up Til It Was Light
Dananananaykroyd - Hey Everyone
Left Side Brain - Collider
Therapy? - Crooked TImber

Currently watching:
The Smoking Room - Series 1+2
Being Human - Series 1
Spiral - Season 1
Lost

Fuck YEAH

2009-04-17T07:06:00.001-07:00

I'm supporting Johnny Foreigner at The Cooler in May. This is good a) because I love JF and b) because you should too. Oh and c) because you can get a ticket from me for a fiver, none of this booking fee shite. Email/myspace/facebook/stop me in the street and get one.

itchy

2009-04-02T05:38:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last week putting things into boxes, moving them to another place, then standing in the middle of them all wondering how the hell all this stuff ever used to fit into a 1 bedroom flat...when it's not pretty much filled a 3 bedroom house to the brim.

Now I'm back at work and the weekend seems so far away and I've got what feels like the very beginnings of a minging cold (where did I pack that First Defence?) and I've got that "I really want to be somewhere else" feeling stronger than I've ever had it.

Here's a list of 6 places I'd rather be at this precise moment:

1 - in our new home
2 - on tour (somewhere...anywhere)
3 - New York
4 - New York (so good I included it twice)
5 - Aberystwyth
6 - Lille

All I ever do in this blog is moan. If anyone was actually reading it they'd think I was a right miserable bastard.

Next time I post I'll be in a bouncy excited fun mood, promise!

Think I'll stick to diet+exercise thanks...

2009-03-22T13:33:00.001-07:00

Taken from the Daily Fail, the day Mrs Thief was born. Nice

Weston / Stourbridge

2009-03-13T19:06:00.001-07:00

Two gigs in a row in really chilly rooms to fairly sparse crowds - but lots of fun all the same. Played an epic 45 minute set @ The Hobbit, including an impromptu serenade to Matt Fizzy Milk as he nipped out for a wazz halfway through. Classy. Stourbridge was a good old catch up with fellow Punktastic boarders/compilation friends The Southern Cradle (like Audio Karate + Get Up Kids) and the mighty Addis braving the buses. Im now back at home watching Quizcall and gradually losing my sanity - Water GATE? Water SKI? Water BASTARD? It's all such bullshit...

Oxygen Thief for Comic Relief

2009-03-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

Hehe, that rhymes.

Wow, it's Comic Relief already - awesome. I'm playing in Stourbridge tonight, so will miss the live fun....but rest assured my Saturday is going to be spent watching it back on iPlayer, fast forwarding all the depressing bits (and by that, I mean anything with Lenny Henry in) and giggling like a chimp.

As I'm a bit too lazy to do anything proper to try and raise money, I thought I'd wang a free download link up of the 6 songs from my profile..........on the condition that you donate something to Comic Relief and/or buy a red nose (just got mine, spongy).

Sound fair?

It's a YouSendIt link, so it's up for 7 days / 100 downloads - so if 100 people download, donate at least a quid to Comic Relief, then that's enough for 20 malaria nets, or a day's cost to run a Community Cafe for people with mental health problems. Winner.

Click: https://www.yousendit.com/download/UmNJclVORkVubHcwTVE9PQ
to set it downloading, and then go donate here: https://donate.comicrelief.com/donation/

Cheers all.

LSB Tour over

2009-03-07T20:26:00.001-08:00

Sleeped at 7am last nite, it's almost 4.30am now + im still awake.....Ryan has the right idea I think. 4 days of hard rock goodness, far too much booze, nowhere near enough sleep, and a lot of miles travelled. Massive fun

My face...

2009-03-06T13:20:00.001-08:00

...looks terrible, what the hell has happened to me? One night up late drinking too much, and all of a sudden I'm paler than Michael Jackson. LSB tour night 2 of my 3 day stint roadie-ing and drinking their beer, massive fun. Last night in Huddersfield absolutely killed, today I feel like I've been killed...they're about to go on in Mexborough - bit of a random town, but the venue is AWESOME. Battery about to fail, laters

Woo, blogging from my phone?

2009-03-06T12:23:00.001-08:00

Just found an application that lets me blog from my phone, without having to piss about on the internet for ages. Awesome

PHiVE : 2 Pigs, Cheltenham w/Still Bust, Rookie/Error & Socken

2009-02-10T14:06:00.000-08:00

massive accidental hangovers + motorway driving = NEVER AGAIN.

playing at the 2 Pigs with a bunch of awesome guys = AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN!

Best sandwich ever

Crowd!

me and Jim "Elf King" Lockey

Still Bust..."night portrait" stylee

It could be youuuuuuu

I thought I took more photos than this.......but I obviously didn't.

Things I did do : play through my hangover...........beat someone 10-0 on table football (GET IN)............watch Harry Hill's TV Burp (singing along to the Poetry Corner bit).........sleep on a sofa..........have an ace time. HOORAY

FORE! The Junction with Still Bust, Rookie Error, and All Hail

2009-02-01T09:12:00.000-08:00

PICTURES SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS (especially when you've left it two weeks before updating blog, and can't be arsed with trying to turn memories into words):

Marty All Hail brushes his teeth, because he rocks that hard that if he doesn't maintain maximum denticular hygiene then those pegs will just get blasted clean out

punters!

Lalala

Big Jeff loving it;

don't know if I'm trying to look "deep" here...or if I've just dropped something

All Hail give it to you in the face;

if you're wondering "hey, what's with all the cool liney photos?" then blame Matt Still Bust for introducing me to the wonders of "night portrait mode" on the camera I've had for, ooh...4 years?

Somehow all the photos came out in the wrong order...oh well

2009 # 3 - Stourbridge, the M5, and a missed opportunity

2009-01-27T12:48:00.000-08:00

Friday hurt - slumping on the sofa to eat before heading out to Stourbridge, I could've quite easily entered hibernation there and then...waking up once the springtime finally broke.

I'm bloody glad I didn't though, as after braving the evils of the M5 in rush hour in a fairly tired state, the gig at Katie Fitzgerald's turned out to be (in purely technical terms) an "absolute fucking blast".

Awesomeness point 1 : They projected Buck Rogers onto the rear wall of the stage for the entire night.

Awesomeness point 2 : Fellow Bristol-type Cat Green Bike was both charming, and excellent to listen to (even if there was a sad lack of Dillinger Escape Plan influence on her uke-tastic tunes - sort it out Xen

Awesomeness point 3 : The utter friendliness of everyone there, and the fact that so many people turned out to a regular Friday night gig at their local.

The only negative was all the lovely and interesting looking beer that I couldn't drink because I had to drive home :( had a solitary pint of Guinness though which was the best I'd had in a good while, and left it at that.

Setlist:
Ours
Camera Shy
Sunclouds
Appetite For Distraction
Pros & Cons
Modesty Is Dead
There Can Be Only One

End of 2009 gig week #1 - have a couple next week, and Left Side Brain @ The Louisiana to look forward to on Saturday.

Rock.

2009 # 2 - UWE gig, Kris Roe, and the constant hangover

2009-01-23T05:21:00.002-08:00

bloody hell I'm getting behind already - Tuesday was spent in a vaguely sleepy state, my body unhappy with the sudden attack of "staying up late headbanging" after a 4 week break.

Gig #2 of 2009 - Livesoc @ UWE Glenside
Awful weather! Lineup mixup (sorry Jim)! PA semi-failure!

First two acts on were of the, um, easy-listening-blues-rock-persuasion...plus some dude wearing a rugby shirt came on between them and sang a couple of slow mumbly songs about being lonely/sad/bored/a bit peckish...I dunno, I wasn't paying attention.

Little rants about things that annoy me about live music #1
People who say "thank you!" immediately at the end of a song...why not just shout "APPLAUD NOW YOU PEASANTS" and have done with it?
What if people don't want to clap? What about letting the dying notes of your final chord sink into the audience's brainholes for a little while? What about being a little bit sensible and crediting the audience with enough intelligence to be able to tell when a song has ended (and then fuck with their expectations by ending songs in weird and interesting ways, putting little fake end-ettes in sometimes).
Overriding all of these little points of etiquette is the blindingly pedantic fact that saying "Thank you" before having been given something is just wrong on the most fundamental level.
Think about it ; if you said "Thank you" to a cashier at the supermarket before they'd even started serving you...they'd think you were simple.

Despite all that, oh yeah and having a fit of absolute MEGA-NERVE-PANIC for about 25 minutes prior to going on...all was overcome by the pure awesome power of ROCK which resulted in a massively fun set.

Spontaneously getting the room to sing a slightly nervous call and response to my Jim Lockey cover has to be one of my all time favourite gig moments...even if they probably only did it out of my plea to "not make me look like a tit". Gold.

Setlist;
Sunclouds
Modesty Is Dead
Camera Shy
Appetite For Distraction
Pros & Cons
Happy Birthday James Blunt (Jim Lockey cover)
There Can Be Only One

Settling down to get seriously stuck in to my UWE Livesoc donated bar tab, heroically aided by Jim L (only in a student union can two grown men get that wasted on £20) we heartily enjoyed the youthful exhuberance of The Go Pogs' funky punkiness before heading home for a bit more whisky, general chitchat, and to almost fall asleep playing Smash Bros. Brawl.

Nursing an almighty hangover, I somehow made it through a day at the office with enough energy left over to go see Kris Roe (almost wrote "Rock" then) acoustic show @ The Croft...ably supported by the "sorry I got there too late to see you" Following Announcement, the excellent and lovely Attika State (who I quite expertly haggled down the price of a cd to the princely sum of £3.15 and a really nice plectrum), and the "more Green Day than Green Day these days" The Remnants ;)

Pear cider is good. Music is good. Going to gigs is good. Playing gigs is good. Not getting enough sleep...may prove to be less good.

2009

2009-01-23T05:21:00.001-08:00

PS:

2009-01-20T07:11:00.001-08:00

I'm really good at choosing colour schemes. As you can tell.

Comprehensive 2009 activity blog #1 : Yeah right, like this is ever going to work.

2009-01-20T06:26:00.001-08:00

So last year was a fairly epic string of fun and exciting things happening...but you know what it was missing?

I do : a load of random words being spewed out onto the internet at every possible opportunity.

But no longer shall the internet suffer a vague lack of my continuing presence - I'm going to blog everything that ever happens, like...ever! (until I get bored / forget to / told to get lost / a combination of all 3).

First up: gig #1 of 2009 - Freakshow @ Dempsey's, Cardiff.
Note to self : rehearsal is a good thing.

Soundcheck felt ace, confidence riding high & the mistake ratio was almost epically low - tonight was going to be an awesome gig.

Then...for some reason...it just wasn't. I don't know if opening act Sweet Baboo put me off (he was really good, but in a slightly terrifying way)...whether cutting out some of my most played tunes took me just too far out of the old comfort zone... whether being too lazy to restring my main guitar & using my spare instead threw things a bit askew...or maybe I was just rusty after not playing live for over a month & then not really rehearsing enough. Dunno, all of the above?

Fuck it - the "Freakshow" chaps were friendly and full of enthusiasm as always, and headliners The Great Admirers described my set as being "like having an amphetamine enema" which I think is a compliment(?). I also was recommended a comedian on the grounds that he once called someone an Oxygen Thief as part of his show, so hoorah.

Listened to a chunk of the audio book of Christopher Hitchen's "God Is Not Great" (hoorah for atheist literature), some new Ben Marwood demos (ace), and a blast of Botch's "American Nervoso" when I started to get a bit tired behind the wheel on my way home.

Setlist:

Camera Shy
Sunclouds
Appetite For Distraction (formerly known as "The Price Is Right", but renamed due to the emergence of a much better pun)
Too Many Trees
Modesty Is Dead
There Can Be Only One

2007-11-09T06:46:00.000-08:00

website website, ooh look at the website: www.oxygenthiefmusic.com

tis a website, oooooooh yeah it's a website, woo!

3

2007-07-03T02:21:00.003-07:00

wee!

2

2007-07-03T02:21:00.001-07:00

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Hello

2007-07-03T02:19:00.000-07:00

testing 123

wooooooooo and yay