Day 3, 11:-05, Mettmann.

Hello all, this is Chris’s band mate Dan Capaldi. Looks like I’ll be doing a bit of blogging after all! To be honest, up until now I’ve always remained safely behind the scenes but in the spirit of tour, I’ve decided not to be such a hermit. Who knows… maybe I’ll even start a twitter… or probably not.

Where to start… I flew in to the UK from the US only six days ago (fresh out of bed from a month long fling with Lyme disease) and my travel time since then is up at around 35 hours. We didn’t have nearly enough time to prepare our tour set, but considering what a tangled web of loops, samples, arms, shakers, sarcasm… we’ve created in such a short time trying to keep up with our ambitious arrangement tendencies, it’s probably best we keep on our toes.

In preparation for this tour, I’ve invented my own snare drum. We’re calling it The Smatch. Essentially what I’ve created is a small scale snare drum with a mountable splash cymbal on the top head. Hitting the cymbal creates a very metallic sound comparable to an electronic hand clap.

Our first show in Munster with Toy Horses went surprisingly well! The band’s entourage was very welcoming and I trust the rest of the tour will be very enjoyable!

Dan

Day one, 14:56, Somewhere over Manchester

I’m blogging at you from the crammed, cramped cabin of a horrific budget airline on our way from Glasgow to London having been awake since 4am, driven 800 miles and, moments ago, having experienced the most excruciating frustration I can ever remember.

Yes, after making this awful journey on a few hours of sleep, in at times torrential rain and high winds, driving at magnificently illegal speeds in a vehicle 100 hours past it’s due service, Dan and I arrived at Glasgow airport *just* in time to check in… minus one passport. Mine.

If I could convey in writing how sickening it was after such a morning to realise that despite packing pretty much everything I own into the van last night, that the one thing I did not pack was my passport, then I would consider giving up music to peruse a career as a writer. In lieu of such skill I can only tell you that I wanted to repeatedly drive a tank through house.

So how am I on a plane? Ironically, thanks to our absurd routing to Dusseldorf, we have a 2 hour stopover in London (you can take an internal flight with just a driving license) and my very kind brother has agreed to bring the offending document – found among the debris of my still packed hand luggage from the States a fortnight ago.

Welcome to my mind, it’s always like this.

Anyway, I should wrap this up… we only just took off and now we’re landing again for more fun and games. Oh yeah, our check in bag was 7kg overweight, which apparently should have costed £70, but the girl at the checkout took one look at our sorry situation and let it slide. Hopefully we can maintain the same projection of hopelessness for the Gatwick check in…

I think we are going to drink a lot of German beer tonight, gig tomorrow or not.

Chris

Woo! Soft Bullets t-shirts arrived today. I love it when a plan comes together.

I’m still in the process of getting a store up and running but once I do you can buy these puppies online. Otherwise you’re just going to have to get yourself to a show and save yourself the postage and packaging. It will mean enduring half an hour of me and Dan though :/

And I got around to doing something yesterday that I’ve always wanted to do, but never had the time before touring (more accurately I had a beautiful assistant do it for me). Yup, that’s right: all rolled up and colour coded by size and sex. No more digging around in boxes for the right size and making a mess of everything. Mmm mmm.

Realised I had this funny feeling all day yesterday and thought there was something wrong with me until I realised I was actually just EXCITED. Really can’t wait to get on the road, even though I’m sure it’s going to be a grind and I’ll be cranky as hell by the end.

Dan just arrived this morning and he’s sleeping off the flight right now. But we have all of two days to get our act together (literally) before we have the worst journey of all time to Germany: Drive to Glasgow, fly back down to London, wait around, fly to Dusseldorf, drive to hotel.
18 hours of travel just to go 380 miles.
Roughly equivelant to averaging 20mph.
It would be faster on a bike.

Anyway I think I can hear him stirring so it looks like now is as good a time as any to start putting a set together :s

Well, I’ve been back for a just over a week and it feels like a month. Suppose that’s a good thing really; after attending a 90th birthday at the weekend I’ve concluded that the longer I can draw this out the better.

Sorry for the radio silence (familiar words…) and hello to all you shiny new members courtesy, I’m sure, of ‘A Skate Illustration.’

I’ll give you something tasty to gnaw on soon, I promise. Actually have a track I “wasn’t allowed” to put on the EP because it was “dull and self-indulgent.” It’s one of my favourites so I’m actually torn between dumping it here now or holding on to it for something more special.

I really need to do some housework around here: I noticed the music player is acting a bit funky and perhaps things aren’t as clear as they could be. Also, the ‘about’ section is becoming increasingly irrelevant. But frankly with tour around the corner and more hungry fans to feed I would rather stick to what I know best and write musics.

Sorry to anyone having problems signing up. Because of the large number of subscriptions recently, emails from my server are being blocked left, right and centre by overenthusiastic robots. (It also doesn’t help when it tries to send an email to someone@something.comm a hundred times before giving up. Or, commonly, asd@fgh.jk)

So due to overwhelming demand I feel obliged to stick this puppy up for sale. I’ll deal with the EP presale later, for now here’s Rescue Radio as a digital download for the bargain price of 99 shiny pennies.

Tip: If clicking ‘buy now’ alarms your machinery, try clicking the image. It links to the store externally.

Tasty.

Really really tasty.

Sweet and sour chicken for the eyeballs, if you will.

Hey everyone,

I’m really happy to announce that we have a handful of shows confirmed supporting G Love.

His tour is solo and acoustic so I imagine we will be playing a slightly different kind of set to compliment that, but a soft bullets set nonetheless!

I’ve put the dates and ticket links in the Live section.

Also working on this EP for Germany and, assuming there are plenty left after that tour, they will be available at the UK shows too.

Hope to see you there,

Chris

I’m late, I’m late! For a very important date!

Actually, seriously… I’m running late :(

Need to have an EP finished this week and musically it’s like a bomb has gone off around here. Shit everywhere. And it’s going hit the proverbial fan if it’s not up to scratch when I deliver it.

Harsh times.

Video cheered me up though:

Dear Santa/Jesus,

Should I be enjoying this? It tastes like a tramps armpit, but it’s strangely addicting….

Lots of love

Christopher

Hey everyone,

Wanted to share this beautiful sunset from the weekend. We went fishing/swimming/kayaking… it was cool.

I’m knee deep in recording an EP now and mentally couldn’t be further from the tranquility in this picture.

That’s all… I Just wanted to post something really.

Night