Put some action in your records

righto, i thought i’d do another about post involving high praise for my friends… As of late i’ve been mildly obsessed with album, “The High and Mighty” by The wonderful Cut Ups and more specifically the song, “Last Night, I Dreamt I Saw Fugazi“. I’ve been thinking about how I can convey why I love it so much… It gives me shivers down my spine. I mean who writes a song about hanging out with Fugazi and gets away with it being a rousing, anthemic, beautiful song? Jon Shoe, that’s who…

…So I thought I’d take a trip to their house in Washington DC / I’d buy all the 8 dollar records / Guy would be there to greet me… / …How i’d love to take a trip with them / I’d help Ian pack the van / As we drove through mountains and valleys / I’d think “this is how to be a band”

And the chorus! Oh my,

Put some action in your records / Make some action in your town! / Only do what you truly believe in / The sun’s never going down

The last time I saw The Cut Ups was at the Zine Fest in Brighton at the Cowley Club, when they played you could not keep the smile off my face… However sickening over-the-top positivity can be, that weekend was the best, it seemed like a tangible manifestation of why i’ve taken the path i have, of why I make the decisions I do. Their set was one of those times when, for me, a moment was captured… more than just a band playing a show.
Ok, i hope you haven’t smashed your screen yet… emotion? urghhhhhhhh. Anyway, the whole album is full of simple, honest observations on life, punk rock and simple, honest lives. It’s fucking great, i couldn’t recommend enough that you buy their record, go see them play and write Jon a letter saying that it’s ok that he is positive and proud and that he loves his mum and dad. Also Reza is a beautiful man who excites me with his drumming… SOLID.  

Integral

TRACK FOUR.

this is the first song we wrote together. interesting. yes.

Sound and Recording

That up there is happening———————> For those unable to read ink crafted on paper and need some sweet, sweet hyperlinks for ease of use, here we go – It is a show Hot Damn are playing at the Cowley Club on the 11th of April.

It is with Das Boton and Cissy  and if you follow those extremely helpful links there you’ll find out that if you come along you’ll be in for a right treat. Bring your journals/books of peotry/musings/nothing along and make up your own words as it’s going to be an instrumental fest extravaganza, drink tea, wig out and try and maybe say nothing all night and we can create a super weird atmosphere of NO WORDS. Oh gosh, it’ll be great.

YES!

Genius

computer died. got new one. brilliant.

Slack Mac

Yes, yes, the 3rd installment of the “I am sparticles extravaganza” is now up and ready for your ears.

Look below for details of the fun deal we’re offering.

I will stop now as i think my computer is going to die.

BaaBaaBaababa

The North Pole [φ] are playing a show tomorrow at the Hobgoblin in Brighton, it’s free. I’ll see YOU there.

ALSO… check out Zombie Crash

“When we go out in our fleeces we have lots of fun.”

fugazibackcatalogueon12″

Hihihi,
So, as i said i would i’ve put up the second song from the I am sparticles discography, ‘meeting point’ on virb. the song is called “follow the map” and is a wonderful little ditty about work and having to get out of bed, watch out for the cutting social commentary…………. the truth hurts guys. for real.

oh yeah, i’ll re-iterate the deal again too – we’re going to put these songs up one by one over 5 weeks, you’ll like them so much you’ll paypal £4 to us here – athomemusic@gmail.com – and at the end of that period we’ll post you out a super special, one of a kind, handmade CD of all the songs. wowsers. if you don’t have paypal just email us and we can sort it out. ok!

Oh Boy

How to be in an international record label company limited -

Step 1 – put Quantum Leap Series one, episode one on your television set.
Step 2 – fold hundreds of cardboard cases in a distracted, robotic manner.
Step 3 – through the power of guilt, force all the people around you to do the same, thereby marring their experience of said television program.
Step 4 – stress out the guy at the post office, who clearly lived his his life previously in a more exciting manner, probably was a bit of a wheeler dealer back in the day, kept that moustache nice and trim for the ladies, but now like many others has fallen on hard times and doesn’t like it one little bit… oh, also get  a bit annoyed at the fact you didn’t get served again by the guy who is CLEARLY in a really great Misfits/Danzig covers band and if he isn’t you’d definitely start one with him, then you’d get to be Chuck Biscuits and that would be amazing… so yeah stress him out by saying the following – “oh no, i didn’t want it first class, oh no it’s ok, really… don’t worry about it, seriously it’s fine… that one too, that’s fine. yes, it’s fine. This one is going to france, this one should be the same weight. this one is going to germany. yep, same weight. this one is going to russia, might be a bit heavier, oh wait this one should be the same weight. yeah. ok sorry, this one will be a bit heavier. it’s going to Belarus… ETC”
Step 5 – go on the internet. A LOT.
Step 6 – eat a pie and roast potatoes.

Tough Magic

привет! Спасибо за покупку CD, надеюсь, вам понравится!

Meeting Point

About 3 and a half years ago Luke and I met, he was ‘interviewing’ me to see if i was suitable to move into his house. I believe mainly due to the fact we were both ex-drummers of pop-punk bands I did turn out to be suitable, thankfully, as i’d driven for about 2 hours from where I was living just to see that one house… excellent planning skills.
Fast forward a little bit… we started messing about with making music together, both coming from an “eager but amateur” standpoint. Using the super low-budget equipment we had and a cracked copy of fruity loops, we created loops, improvised over the top together, layered stuff on top of that and experimented with anything we could really, creating a load of instrumental songs that we decided to file under the name Paper Aeroplane… it was a lot of fun and we both learnt a lot. We’ve never really fully finished the songs so we were totally happy with them, which is a shame, maybe we’ll get round to it one day.

Anyway… after doing all these songs with no end, structure or organisation we thought the next logical step would be to do away with all the effects and layering and improvising and just try and see if we could write songs with just 2 guitars and singing. This we called I am sparticles and over the course of a year managed to write 5 songs and play 3 gigs, it was pretty hectic i’ll tell you now… I do have to remind you though that we were both learning how to play guitar in a band and to be honest the live experience was more terrifying than anything… excuses, excuses.

I’ll get to the point soon… before we knocked it on the head, as we felt that despite it being fun we really, essentially just wanted to make more noise, we started to record those 5 songs we had written together. It’s taken a while, learning more about recording as we were going along and doing lots and lots of pottering on it here and there, we’ve finally finished it and are both happy with it… hooray!

Now, because we’re never going to play any shows or have any plans of doing anything outside these 5 songs we were unsure what to do with them. We’d like people to hear them but realise the demand will probably be quite low for a ‘proper’ release. We thought it would be a good idea to (now here’s the point!) – put a song up once a week from the EP, on the virb account we have, to stream and for people to listen to. Then if you like what you hear and what a physical copy you can paypal £4 (inc p+p) to athomemusic@gmail.com (with the title I am sparticles) and at the end of the 5 weeks whoever has sent us money will receive a lovingly hand-made package with a CD of the tracks and pictures, lyrics and inserts, etc… They will be the only copies made ever and then we’ll put the whole thing up for download.

Sound like a plan?