Being Sentenced..

"Your honour, my client was totally ignorant.." Aye to that. Somehow the duty solicitor also managed to mention that Subsource are due for very great things. Paul escaped with the minimum point penalty (six) and the smallest fine the solicitor had ever seen. (£45 + £45 costs) 

Gig Review: Sunday 29th October - Brixton Jamm

A new night to promote new and upcoming live acts, brought to the Brixton Jamm by the beautiful people of Planet Angel. And there's no other crowd that would move on the dancefloor for us like they did at 7.45pm on a Sunday evening. It's so gratifying to see the grins and raised hands running right to the back row in the photo. I've been told even those who were watching at the other end of the live webcast also had their hands up.

You learn to play an instrument, you get a band together, you go out and play some shows. You get a good response (bear in mind that even if you suck monkey balls, the only people who ever talk to you will tell you that you're great), but there comes the barrier where you just can't seem to make that crossover where you're making a living from it. You can get stuck in a rut, the same old gigs, a few new faces, but some bands can sit forever in that wasteland just past being a pleasant local success. Tonight, there's no doubt that the process of breaching that barrier is well underway.

The other main highlight of the night was Paul headbutting the top of the van door whilst jumping into it headfirst. He's not having much luck at the moment, and tomorrow's his court case. If you remember this incident: here. It turned out that he wasn't insured to be driving the van and is therefore liable for a minimum of 6 penalty points on his license and a maximum £5000 fine. We'll be there to egg him on in court in the morning. 

Gig Review: Fri 27th October - Goldsmiths College

Last time we played here on a Friday night, we were wondering where all the students were. This time they were out in force to check us out supporting Hexstatic. It's not a small venue... this was one probably one of the best attended shows so far.

Definitely rated as one of my favourite places to play thanks to the backstage tea-making facilities provided. And a lovely crowd indeed. 

A Happy Van Owner

 

Here it is!

The 4th van we looked at was the one. Much more comfy and homely, more light in the back, fewer dubious looking stains on the seats but we still need to chuck an air freshener because there's a lingering odour of farmyard animals. The engine is not nearly as good so no more burning up and down the street outside Burger King with the other boy racers on Sunday night, and we may well have to get up and push on slight uphill inclines once it's fully loaded with our gear.

Forgot to mention that Nelly had his ears syringed and they pulled out a sizeable clump of grey gunk (don't worry, we did confirm that it wasn't his brain), and his hearing has improved significantly. 

The Van Plan

I get a phone call from Stuey this morning.
"You know I put the van in for a service yesterday?"
"Yep."
"The van we bought for £600.."
"Yep."
"The service plus recommended works comes to £1850"
"Uh..."
"Oh, and we probably need to add VAT on top of that"

The sad fact of the matter is that despite the number of gigs we've done this year, they usually barely cover our diesel costs and we've no way near that amount in the band funds. Today I meant to buy a Subsource stage-approved shirt (i.e. black, and doesn't make me look fat), then get a hefty writing session in, but instead we spent a good 8 hours researching possible van options and going to have a look at some other used ones. Looks like we'll be losing our current van fairly soon. Sigh, happy memories.

In addition, Paul's laptop (iBook) blew its motherboard, so he's gone and bought a swish Intel MacBook job thanks to parental intervention. Sometimes you get those patches where problems and challenges are thrown at you and this is definitely one of those periods. To compound our financial struggles, I seem to be surrounded by people who have either just landed new jobs or have been promoted with sizeable payrises, and I just can't help but contemplate the decisions I've taken... perhaps I'm overtired and I've been overthinking, but sometimes you have to think 'bollocks' to this no-regrets fast-lane attitude to life and for a couple of hours at least, the conversation between my heart and the bottom of my stomach has been telling me to definitely consider there's the possibility that I've made a mistake. 

Gig Review: Saturday 14th October - The Boileroom, Guildford

Guildford's newest music venue: The Boileroom, it still smells clean and new which is a novelty compared to most of the sweaty, beer-drenched, smoke-ridden places we play. The air conditioning is a real bonus too, and as we come off stage after playing to a very receptive home crowd, we're feeling remarkably fresh and it's a bonus that home is just a 3 minute drive away rather than a 2 hour endurance-test in the van. (Which was a good job since Nelly realised he'd left his laptop at home during soundcheck)

For all of the pleasantries of this gig, I did kinda miss the darkness and the dirtiness - and without that feeling of rolling in at home at 4am having died twice (once from dehydration and once from exhaustion), I feel like I just plain cheated. 

When I say "Sub", he says, "Huh, What Was That?"

It was only 12 months ago - I predicted that Nelly would be deaf within 10 years (http://www.subsource.co.uk/blog/2005_10_01_archive.html) It looks like he's well ahead of schedule. Having had tinnitus for a while already, comments such as, "I was trying to do this mix, but had to stop because everything was totally muffled by then" are starting to arise with more frequent regularity. Of course, we'd be devestated if Subsource as we know it terminated prematurely so please send words of encouragement to him to spend what needs to be spent on some top-of-the-range fitted earplugs...

Oh - this pic.. trying to keep ourselves entertained for 5 hours in the back of the van is so difficult, it sometimes has to resort to this. If anyone has any good suggestions for how to stay entertained whilst driving for this long, please send an e-mail to the Subsource e-mail account. Also, uhm, if anyone happens to know any good drummers... 

Gig Review: Saturday 30th September - Joshua Brooks

All in all, a very memorable adventure to Manchester. The crowd was amazing and the vibe was perfect... plenty of friends we'd made at Solfest came along to say hi. On the whole, there's a different attitude towards live acts outside of London. This 'Monster Monster' night we can play and get inundated with people chasing us up wanting to know more about us and find out when we're next playing. Same happened of course in Carlisle. My tip to any band is to get out of the saturated London music scene for a gig or two to see the difference..

Dang, those Mancs know how to party hard too.. Such a legendary night. It somehow managed to fade the memory of some idiot leaving the back of the van wide open whilst we drove for an hour on the way up (the same spanner that caused us an hour's diversion by leaving his stage clothing at home). But I probably wouldn't have gotten away with it if stuff had dropped out and we'd left a trail of broken musical equipment down the M25. Eek!