Friday blogging

Hello again,

We're in sunny Nottingham... well, to be honest, it's pissing down and it's cold. But it's nice to be back at Junktion 7 again. The tour has been going inordinately well, and it has been the world of fun.

Where did we leave you? Oh yeah, Manchester. Found our way to the venue, nice to see promoter Rob and set up and all the usual gubbins. Being in a rock band looked so much fun when I was a kid, but when you actually get to do it, there's a LOT of waiting around, fannying about, setting shit up, and all the boring stuff. Not that I'm complaining for a second, because I've wanted to do this since I was three when I wrote my first song:

'Mischief bit me all the way,
And mummy put a flaster on'

(Mischief was the family rabbit, and I couldn't pronounce the word 'plaster' properly.)

Anyway, I disgress.

Yeah, it's a wonderful life, most of the time, but it's not all jams with Slash and groupies in the jacuzzi... in fact, it's never jams with Slash and groupies in the jacuzzi. My point being that a lot of work goes into all this that isn't quite as glamourous as being on up stage rockin' a sixer (genuine quotation from an American kid I met on the Sisters tour '06). And, seeing as we're utterly DIY, we're setting up all our merch, cutting out CD covers (because you lot have bought almost 300 cds in five dates! Thank you!), cutting up flyers, doing blogs, replying to e-mails, sorting out other gigs, posting you CDs, blah blah blah.

Doing all your own work does mean that when it comes to gig time that we feel way more vindicated as we are our own machine ('scuse the slight pun) with no-one else to answer to. And Manchester was utterly no exception. I think probably my favourite gig of the tour so far. Great sound, great audience, and we sold a total shitload of swag, thank you! We catch up with some old mates (hello Shirly Moose) and make some new ones (hello Indigo). My girlfriend Sally and I look for a bar recently opened by an old mate of mine, that appears to have disappeared. And utterly miss the earthquake. As a geologist, Sally is gutted.

Leeds the next night is good fun, uneventful to be honest. We don't sell much merch as we know half the crowd. It's difficult to pretend to be a pop star when half the audience have seen you being sick on your shoes or asleep in the pub.

Leicester is... Leicester. I like the place as a shopping city. It's clean and tidy and lovely. The Charlotte is one of those classic toilet venues like the Adelphi in Hull or the Duchess in Leeds (RIP), and as such has a brilliantly mardy soundguy. He's on top form today and gets us a great sound in the end. Despite thinking we were going to claim our cover of Wichita Lineman (aka The Best Song Ever Written) as our own. We meet a Polish guy called Peter, who is lovely despite not really understanding a word each other are saying. We learn the Polish for boots is 'foods'. And later, during Ginger's set in which I am playing acoustic guitar, we learn that he has the worst sense of timing of any person in the room. Bless 'im. He obviously has a big passion for rock music and is trying his best to forge a new life for himself over here. It's meeting characters like these that make touring the world of fun.

'Touring, touring, 's'never boring.'

I do the set with Ginger while Davros sells a bit of merch then we head back to the hotel. Lo and behold, there's a casino next door. So Scott Motherfucking Metzger who's playing guitar with Ginger (all-round nice guy and beauty guitar player), Davros and myself sort our hair out, dust off the one vaguely nice shirt we each have and join up to play some roulette. Scott is chip leader for the most part until I have some big luck and we all walk out with more money than we came in with. Hot news!

And so to Nottingham, more cutting up, photocopying, posting out CDs, sending Mother's day cards (did you remember?), egg butties and consequential trumps. Tonight should be fun, it always is in Nottingham.

See you over the next week.
Chris and Davros.