- Posted on April 18, 2008 11:35 AM
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Sunday – London Scala
It's a seven am start today, we've got this Liveroom tv session for the internet, which is something that's pretty hard to get psyched about this early in the morning. Loading up four flights of stairs to record for ten minutes, everyone's hung-over from pre-tour breaking in rituals and Andrew is sick with no voice to speak of. We settle straight away for a passable attempt at playing the songs convincingly, and load out down the four flights to get to the Scala in ten minutes time and do it over. When we arrive a box of our record will be waiting for us, so everyone's keen to get there and have a pop on them.
We load in and go to the bar next door where there's a rock and roll dejay playing early 7" vinyl through a gramophone machine, he's wearing a tweed suit and a beat up trilby, making him look like a auction show presenter. His name is Wheelybag. He's running competition games and Al and Graeme play a couple of rounds of chicken and spoon, with some mothers and toddlers. You've got to knock a felt chicken off someone else's spoon whilst not losing your own; Al and Graeme faired pretty well being the only guys and only ones over the age of six. Al won a cuddly duck and basked in the glory of giving to the youngest kid in front of his mother, the kid put it in his mouth straight away.
We get back to the venue, Dead Meadow are there and we try and get acquainted, they're kind of closed books, I think it's just the scars of years of being owned by the bud. We play the show and get away with it… the Scala's always been pretty hard for us, it's kind of boomy and we're just too loud and disjointed for it to work properly. It's probably our best time though. It feels good to be selling the record now, everyone agrees it's been a long time coming and it's great to see people are excited about it… loads of the guys that helped make the record happen are here tonight so it feels like an occasion, our love goes to Debbie, Hayley and Stacey especially, there rare examples of people in the music business that are not only good people but also good at what they do. Debbie's our point of contact at the label, and easily the best thing about DIS.
With everything wrapped up we're going to drive to Manchester, the show's in Glasgow tomorrow so we need to break the journey's back some. Just outside London the van we stole from foals starts pumping carbon monoxide into the interior through the vents, it's a recurring problem that costs us two hundred quid a time and makes us all sick for days. Obviously losing the van to the garage on the first day isn't ideal; we stick it out and get to Paul Wong's studio in Leicester in the hope we can borrow Tired Irie's van… it's all cool but they have shows in a couple of weeks time when we're meant to be in Europe, at least we've delayed the inevitable, there's some god that wants us to fail. Paul Wong's hospitality is famous. He greets us at four in the morning, he's practically nocturnal, with food and smoke and drink, some of us quiver out more or less as soon as we get there (the monoxide really fatigues you), but those that fight it are treated to new tracks by Tired Irie and the Flight of the Conchords. Sam gets his night terrors and looks like a stuck pig.
Continue reading "TOUR DIARY: London" »
- Posted on April 18, 2008 11:33 AM
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Monday – Glasgow
Not even including swapping our gear from one beat up royal mail LDV to another identical one belonging to Irie and booking ours in for repair, somehow it takes nine hours to get the Glasgow today, so everything that happens, happens in the van. Paul Simon's Graceland always picks up the mood on drives like this, we also have a go on some Death Cab For Cutie, The Smiths, I Was A Cub Scout, The National and The Black Keys.
We see two clouds that look like a velocer raptor rutting a mammoth and Sam manages to sing a song about it for what seems like at least an hour, it even has a 'raptor rap' as the middle eight, Sam's kind of like the guy from Shine. We stop for a few minutes so Danny (our tour manager and driver) can stretch his legs and remember the man he used to be. A fighter jet passes overhead, and can be no more than a hundred metres up, the volume and force makes the van practically jump up toward the plane for a mechanical high five.
Driving through Scotland is a total feast, it's beautiful. Finally we get to the venue, King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, it's five minutes before doors so we scramble our stuff down the fire escape and hope for the best when it's time to play. King Tut's is a great venue, they really take care of you regardless of whether you're a support band or not / five hours late or not… with a couple of notable exceptions (foremost Ejector Seat in the south, Safety Dance and the legendary Hull Adelphi) this isn't something that you see in England, it has far more of a European style of running the show which makes the night go smoother for everyone.
As always it's a total pleasure to play to a Glasgow crowd, they're warm and upbeat, not as earnest and self-conscious as some southern crowds. After the show we find ourselves at a dreadful bar called BOX, the music stinks and is loud as fuck, but the company's good (Dead Meadow are feeling loose tonight) and Danny manages to seduce a crate of free beer out of a girl from the past who's working behind the bar… though things are looking promising for Danny tonight unfortunately he's completely lost his mojo.
Continue reading "TOUR DIARY: Glasgow" »
- Posted on April 18, 2008 11:31 AM
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Tuesday – Newcastle
We have breakfast in Glasgow student union, getting there just as the kitchen closes we content ourselves with potato pancakes in bleached white rolls, and sweet tea. As usual Al, who has a busier life than the rest of us (largely because of his record label, but also because his OCD means his days are filled with much more detail), has errands to run. If were ever late it's probably because of this… we have to go to a post office so he can post some neatly wrapped parcels, both his cards get declined and we have a really depressing whip round between the eight of us we manage to conjure the eight pounds he needs!
Back on the road and for the rest of the day there are better things to think about than our inevitable bankruptcies. We listen to Dark Side Of The Moon driving out in the sunshine and frost, the clouds are so low it gives the illusion that the snow is leaking back into the sky. Scotland's countryside is breath taking, waterfalls, dry stone walls that have seen history after history and dense conifers patch-working.
We stop for a good break before we hit England again… an unlikely attempt is made to catch a fish with an ad hock pole, giving up, the rest of the time is spent on tobogganing on the lids of the boxes we keep our t-shirts in. We drive on and Sam gets to see his favourite landmark, a forest that is in the shape of a cock and balls. Arriving at The Cluny in Newcastle everyone's a little apprehensive about the night ahead it's not a town that's ever been easy for us. On the whole the crowd is fairly disinterested, though it is pretty hard to tell whether the Dead Meadow fans are bored or just stoned out of their minds. It's a bad way to gauge a reception but I guess we sell some cd's and garb so there must some people that cared enough.
How you're received as a band is a really regional thing, I guess it's about anthropology… people have the musical history of their homes in the blood… so the more traditional 'song writing' towns like Liverpool or classic rock towns like Birmingham have always been tough for us to crack, they're towns with girthy musical legacies. Most of us in the band moved around a lot when we were kids, so maybe that had an effect on how we go about things. It's another night drive, tonight we're staying in Manchester, I think these drives are beginning to tweak Danny out, his eyes are get ringlets like the cross section of a tree, they're telling how long this life's been going.
Continue reading "TOUR DIARY: Newcastle" »
- Posted on April 18, 2008 11:29 AM
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Wednesday – Manchester
We had to wake up in Manchester today because Al and Sam have to get to London and back before the show. Try Harder (Al's Label ) are doing a Maida Vale session, and Sam's playing trumpet with his other band Jonquil as well as whoring his shit all over the gorgeous Blanket. So we sound-check without them, we finally have our own sound engineer, Pete, which means the pressure of them not being there diverts on to him, which is great for us. It's a day of just killing time until the show, there are a lot of these… you'll often spend eight hours in the venue before you even play, it's easy to get jaded by the environment, most venues look the same so you begin to feel kind of like a goldfish. Sam and Al arrive as we go on stage, literally.
Everyone's kind of stressed and under-prepared, but it somehow converts into a really fun show… we've got a real soft spot for Manchester and never seem to have a bad time there. We meet Keeley and Rosamund, friends of our friend James (who's helping us out on merch), they have a scary amount of vitality and an overwhelming lack of inhibition, more of them later.
- Posted on April 18, 2008 11:28 AM
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Thursday - York
York is a very standard tour day, it was great at the time, but there's no need to relive it. It's Cardiff tomorrow, so it's another night drive to Leicester, Danny's adding annulus in dog years.
Continue reading "TOUR DIARY: York" »
- Posted on April 18, 2008 11:26 AM
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Friday – Cardiff
The show's great today and we see some familiar faces, it's the warmest crowd we've had in Clwb Ifor Bach. Everyone's happy tonight, it's our last show with Dead Meadow and we say our goodbyes. Cardiff on a Friday night is like an orgy or Bartholomew Fair, it's the site of flailing barely covered tits, curry stained Ben Sherman shirts, kinky fancy dress, mere cat bouncers, protective boyfriends, sugary alcohol, sluessing piss and islands of sick. No one can decide whether it's the future or the past. We impose, as always, on the hospitality of a stranger and battle to shotgun the various sofas, futons and cushions. We leave early in the morning because we've heard of a place in Cardiff where you can buy roller skates for just five pounds. Our thoughts are that the upcoming Foals shows are going to be in large venues and we're going to have a lot of time to kill.
Continue reading "TOUR DIARY: Cardiff" »
- Posted on April 18, 2008 11:21 AM
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Saturday - Carlisle Brickyard
Meeting up with Foals has a reunion feel, it's rare that any of us have the time to be in the same town, let alone the same room anymore. The love between us is pretty over the top. We all feel real paternal toward them especially Yannis and Jack who used to come round our house in their school uniforms, to listen to records and practice in our garage. Yannis' friendship and mine has been pretty key to who we are now. The Foals crowd are awesome, full of life and out to have a good time.
It turns out that none of us know how to deal with the enthusiasm of the younger members of the crowd who all think we must be stars just because we're in a touring band, they'd be pretty disillusioned if they knew the truth of us living on one service station meal a day and what ever we can justifiably steal from foals' rider. We're not the kind of band that generally gets asked to sign things, especially t-shirts or skin… there's probably a code of conduct but we got pretty carried away, at one point I decided it was permissible to sign ANDREW MEARS FROM THE BAND YOUTHMOVIES across a fifteen year old girls face in permanent marker, accompanied by choruses from her mates of 'your Dad…' (who was waiting outside in the car) '…is going to kill you'.
We leave the venue, (who treated us spectacularly), shame faced as the five crates of beer, four bottles of spirits and the excitement of being with friends we've not seen in what seems like a life time meant the that the dressing room in a far less satisfactory condition, cue Al sloping out of the front door with chive dip caked in his hair and his clothes drenched in milk. There's going to be an air of school boy regret from now on, we're not that type of band.
We stay with our new friend Lucy tonight she works at the venue and is totally awesome. Just a great girl; her parting gift to us was a five hundred piece jigsaw of Charles and Diana and a copy her awesome record Sonatine.
Continue reading "TOUR DIARY: Carlisle Brickyard" »
- Posted on March 5, 2008 3:03 PM
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Andrew Mears: guitar, vocals
Al English: guitar, vocals
Stephen Hammond: bass
Graeme Murray: drums, vocals
Sam Scott: trumpet, keyboards
"Sinister, challenging and fascinating, 'Good Nature' is surely one of the most original and interesting British albums that 2008 will see." The Fly
Lead single The Naughtiest Girl Is A Monitor is out 3rd March and the debut full length Good Nature on 17th March 2008 on Drowned In Sound Recordings.
Youthmovies' MySpace.
- Posted on March 5, 2008 2:10 PM
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MARCH
Sun 2 Mar London Scala w/Dead Meadow
Mon 3 Mar Glasgow King Tuts w/Dead Meadow
Tue 4 Mar Newcastle The Cluny w/Dead Meadow
Wed 5 Mar Manchester Night and Day w/Dead Meadow
Thu 6 Mar York Fibbers w/Dead Meadow
Fri 7 Mar Cardiff Club Iffor Bach w/Dead Meadow
Sat 8 Mar Carlisle Brickyard w/Foals
Sun 9 Mar Newcastle Academy 2 w/Foals
Mon 10 Mar Glasgow QMU w/Foals
Tue 11 Mar Manchester Club Academy w/Foals
Wed 12 Mar Birmingham Academy 2 w/Foals
Fri 14 Mar Norwich Waterfront w/Foals
Sat 15 Mar Oxford Academy 2 w/Foals
Sun16 Mar Brighton Concorde 2 w/Foals
Mon 17 Mar London Astoria w/Foals
Tues 18 Sheffield, Corporation
Wed 19 Nottingham, Bodega Social
Thurs 20 Mar Fabric (Adventures In The Beetroot Field) London
Fri 21 - Tunbridge Wells, Forum
Sat 22 - Cambridge, Portland Arms
Sun 23 - Coventry, Taylor John's House
Mon 24 - Bristol, Cooler Club
Tues 25 - Liverpool, Korova
Wed 26 - Hereford, Jail House
Thurs 27 - Norwich, Queen Charlotte
Sat 29 Mar Rhaaa Lovely Festival Cortil Wodon, Belgium
Mon 31 - La Fleche d'Or, Paris, France
APRIL
Tues1 - Brighton, Freebutt
Wed 2 - Southampton, Joiners
Thurs 3 - London, ICA
Fri 5 - Leeds, Library
