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.

Tour

Hello to all our new friends across the country.

The tour has been great so far... Blackpool is weird in winter - desolate doesn't quite do it justice - but the crowd was great and we met some old friends and made lots of new ones. The gig itself was a blinder. Cheers to Martin, Fiona and Scotty. And new pals Keith and Rich's sing-a-long-a-Metallica later was a real sight to behold. Keith earlier revealed that his favourite song of all time is 'Remember You're A Womble', and gave five very good reasons why.

We met Scott Metzger, who is playing guitar with Ginger on this stint, who is a thoroughly bloody nice bloke. And hellfire can he play guitar. Ginger's set was a blast, I got roped into doing percussion with a guy called Darren (I think - hello Darren!) who was brilliant. Much fun had by all.

Saturday our drummer Wayne Insane got married - Congratulations to you and Mrs Insane! Cue much rug-cutting and bitter drinking.

Sunday was Glasgow - Davros who is doing these dates with me couldn't get this week off work so couldn't make this gig, which was a shame, but thanks to the Glasgow lot for more fun than you could shake two sticks at... three, maybe. Fuck it, a whole tree. Wonderful night. Got roped into playing guitar with Ginger and Scott tonight... which was 1000% fun too. Looks like that's gonna stay a permanent fixture for the rest of the tour. Thanks to Ali for the help with the merch and looking just like my friend Jane. See you mental Scots in May!

Monday (last night) was Sheffield. Now, I'm going to be honest here, I always find Sheffield a bit weird to play. I'm never sure that people are having a good time. Tonight was no exception, but after we sell a shedload of merch and get loads of lovely comments. And a girl wants pictures of herself providing the filling in a Davros/Chris sandwich. We (obviously) oblige. Tyla turns up and provides a suitably rock n'roll set. Hanoi Rocks turn up later but a little too late for the mooted Ginger/Hanoi/Tyla collaboration... another day maybe... Ginger's set goes great, a packed Corporation know every word of every song, my mate Dave Baird in particular. We're using the floor as a drum kit, and when it sounds amazing, it sounds REALLY amazing. Cheers to all at the Corporation for a top night, and Howie for helping on the merch.

Anyway time to go to Manchester. This has been way more dull than I'd hoped. Sorry.

Chris.

Today has been a good day.

You know those days when everything's shit? You stub your toe on the door, the heating's packed in and it's freezing, you're out of milk and the shop is still shut and there's no bog roll? And it's still only 7.30am?

Today has not been one of those days. Today has almost made me ashamed to hate the human race. First up our mate Ryan has helped us out shedloads by doing the printing on 300 CDs for this tour we're doing. He's stayed up late and pulled out all the stops, and they look great. And... get this... it's his birthday today. Thank you Ryan.

Steve Kind has also, for nothing, helped out with the printing for the last few sleeves. Sally helped do the rest over the weekend. Cheers guy and gal.

Through one thing and another, I needed a roof box thing urgently for the tour, and only found out yesterday night. Cue much texting and asking round. Ben at Beej Guitar Repairs offering his help fixing some bars on, Dave at Rockshack offering to lend us his roof box... which he's lent to Scottish out of Phluid, who has said he doesn't need it for the next couple of weeks. This ensures that you guys get a show over the next few weeks from us and of course Ginger, and means the guys get a vague amount of comfort in my car (I'm driving, you see).

And if that wasn't all, my mate Andy offered me the use of his box thing for nothing over the next few weeks.

Sorry, this is all pretty boring, but I wanted to thank those who deserve it. It's hard work being in a band sometimes and you guys make it easier. For this, we salute you.

x

Last night's gig at Carpe Diem in Leeds

Bloody marvellous fun, thanks to everyone for coming and absolutely ramming the place out. It was one-in-one out on the door from about 9.30pm, just as you'd expect and hope for with a line-up of this calibre on show. The Gushers were great, tight harmonies and big, big riffs. Definitely to file under 'ones to watch'. Red Go Green Stop brought the party with pogo-tastic disco hooks and more cowbell than you could shake a rather large stick at. And our great showbiz mates (and in some cases housemates) International Trust (oi) were just as much rollocking rock and roll fun as they always are. We love you boys. Our set was hit by a couple of little technical and teething problems, but hey, it was our third gig, what do you want, pyro? Seriously though, thanks to Rob for putting us on, Senor Casajeros for the top tunes and soundman Dean for his hard graft under difficult circumstances. Our mates Si and Eric filmed the gig for posterity and pomposity - so look out for some clips on YouTube at some point soon. We'll let you know on here.

The website is now pretty much finished and live, so pass on the word. Our Myspace will still be there, but this website gives us a bit more chance to have a chat and tell you some vaguely funny stories now and then. We're going to try and keep on top of updating it regularly, especially when we're out on tour, like for instance from the end of this week with Ginger.

All the best. And thanks again for making last night too much fun.
Chris + EM. x

First blog

Hello everyone and welcome to our first blog. This is
an utterly shameless excuse in narcissism from the
four of us. As we're a new band, we've nothing much to
report just yet, but keep checking back. This is where
you will be able to read about our tales of rock n'
roll hedonism and debauchery.

We've got new stuff to sell you. The t-shirts are
being printed up at the moment, and hopefully
(fingers, toes and other extremities crossed) we'll be
selling them on here through PayPal by the end of next
week. There's also going to be three (count 'em) CDs
to buy, and badges. Eureka Machines Cheque Book And
Pen Sets are available for the truly dedicated. We'll
always deliver them as quickly as we can, but please
bear in mind it's us that's doing it, and we're

(a) busy being pretend pop stars, and
(b) useless

so bear in mind it may take a week or two for you to
receive your goods, mainly because Davros and Chris
are on tour for two weeks and Wayne is getting
married. We'll be as quick as we can though.

There's a titload of gigs on the gigs page - go check
'em out and see what you can get to. All of our gigs
come with The Eureka Machines Seal Of Quality And
Goodness, which means that if you don't enjoy yourself
then you are allowed to spank the band member of your
choice up to three times with a clipboard.

Anyway, on to those tales of hedonism and debauchery
we promised you earlier. It was Chris's birthday on
Monday so we went for a curry at the best curry house
in the world : (link)
and ate way too much. If you ever go, tell them we
sent you. Chris burned his finger on a sparkler but
should just about make the gig this weekend. I wonder
if Motley Crue ever had these problems.

Wayne's getting married in a couple of weeks which is
definitely going to be fun. Congratulations to him and
Adele. The happy couple are off to New York for their
honeymoon, lucky buggers. His stag do culminated in a
four-hour jam at a mate's house with Wayne's dad
fronting the band. It obviously runs in the family.

Steve Morricone is thinking about getting a new car.

Davros only seems to come out for rehearsals and gigs.
We're beginning to wonder if he exists at all. When he
does appear, he just stares, snarls and steals our
cigarettes.

Anyway, we've wasted enough of your time on this now,
but keep checking back. We've got a load of gigs
coming up to tell stories of, including a trip to
Poland, which is bound to be hilarious. We'll also be
talking about the people that we meet, so look out for
yourself in here. We have a tendency to attract the
weird and wonderful.

Oh, and if you ever have any questions for us, please
get in touch on band[at]eurekamachines.com and we'll
endeavour to answer them on here or in the FAQ.

All the best and keep smiling
EM x