Guitars 2...

..I Totally went and bought one didn't I!  Well, a Squier....bargainous at £179 tho!

Guitars..

A quick note firstly to say that I no longer blog Catsforperu gigs here, they are on our Facebook page.

Anyway, on with guitars..  

Basically, I want and need a new guitar.  As much as I love my Ibanez, it's a bit buzzy, the pickups always fall out and it's a bit 80's metal for my tastes.  Saying that, it surprisingly has an amazing clean tone to it but there's not enough beef behind it for me.

So I'm after something new.  Unfortunately, I know nothing about guitars and all that humbucker shit.  So I need something that sounds and looks nice.  The guitar that meets both those requirements for me is the oh-so-obscure Telecaster.  I want a black one.

I also like the one with a black plate too..



So there you have it, I guess I thought it was vital that you knew I needed a new guitar.  You never know, someone might just give me theirs.  Hmmm...

Ramble Ramble Ramble

Well it has been a while since I have written, apologies for ignoring you Sir Blogface..

Just got a lot of feelings built up (in the ol' cliche way) and I need to vent it somewhere and I guess this is the best place for it to be fair. My work have just emailed round for Bernados asking for us to donate CDs, DVDs or Walkman/discman. Alternatively, we could all band together and buy something to donate. I was going to suggest this but then thought to myself that there are hundreds of charities I would give to ahead of that. The idea is that we put in our unwanted gifts to give to underprivileged kids. An underprivileged kid with a walkman isn't going to change much (don't get me wrong, it's still a good charity). So I put it upon myself to donate to 2 or 3 charities monthly - UNICEF is definitely one I feel strongly about. I also thought about donating to Friends of the Earth - a charity to help fight global warming. But then there's Amnesty International....Oxfam....NSPCC....Breast Cancer....RSPCA....etc etc etc. It's just so saddening to think that it is vital all these charities exist - 99% of which are easily preventable if human beings just acted appropriately. Ok there are many exceptions - most cancers can't be helped, earthquakes and natural disasters can't be helped. But child abuse.....fucking child abuse!!! How on earth can anyone abuse a child? It just doesn't make sense to me! Then there are countries like Zimbabwe and North Korea - run my absolute monsters and there is nothing that "the people" can do to stop all this happening and they are stuck in a horrible nightmare that can see no end.

So then when I finally settle on a charity or two, I decide how much to donate a month. £5 each way I think. £5..!!!! I get £900 a month and I'm donating just over 1% of my wage when the rest will go on a big house I don't need, heating that I don't need, electricity I don't need, luxuries I don't need. It almost seems too patronising to give such a small amount. I know that "every little helps" but we can all do so much more but we don't - me included of course. But why don't we? - because we're all selfish... Is it wrong though? Shouldn't everyone be living at the same standard around the world? But then, what about the "bad people" - shouldn't they be living at a lower standard? Of course this theory is Impossible to police. It's impossible to be selfless and it bothers some people more than others. It bothers me greatly right now but I haven't got it in me to do anything about it - does it make me a bad person? I guess it does but that makes the whole world selfish.

Anyway, I'm glad I've got all that out of my system, I do feel a little better for it admittedly...reading back I don't half mumble but I can't be arsed to go back and edit it, it all kind of "flowed out" and I want to keep it that way.
Just save the kids everyone :(

Cats:for:peru gig #006

We played the Grapes last night.  It was a Norwich Union gig but thankfully there was no corporate bollocks in site.  Cant speak for the others but I got a little drunk and had a ball.

Setlist:
1.  Love in a lift
2.  Bring in the experts
3.  Last man in Europe
4.  The nobodies
5.  Cutting the bridges in half
6.  I:am:the:orgasm

I think we went down really well, there were quite a few randoms in that I spoke to after that were full of praise.  Venkman Heist were on after us and I missed most their set due to packing up and talking and all that.  Screaming Mimi were ace as per...

Cats:for:peru gig #005

What up.  So we played Runaway Girl the other night.  We arrived 7pm sharp as advised and paid £2.50 each to park.  After sitting around drinking expensive drinks, seeing Kinny lose to Bolly at pool and Sky Sports missing Derby's goal against Newcastle, we finally soundchecked at 8.45pm.  Soundcheck wasn't too smart either but when we finally got round to playing, I think we had a good time and the place was quite full.

Setlist
1.  Last man in europe
2.  A34
3.  Cutting the bridges in half
4.  The Nobodies
5.  I:am:the:orgasm
6.  Love in a lift

We were due to play Manifesto instead of The Nobodies but Ukulele technical problems prevented this.  All in all this was a good gig and was good to play the new song live before we recorded it.  

Cats:for:peru gig #004

Apologies Blogface, I appear to have forgotten to write about this gig!  We played Grapes again after being invited but all round good chap Chris Murphy.  After Electric Picnic, I lost my voice and it began to get worse and the preceeding week went on.  I tried various remedies and come the gig, I was still not 100% fit.  We carried on regardless though and all wasn't as bad as it could have been...

Setlist
1.  The nobodies
2.  Last man in europe
3.  Tripwires and flashing lights
4.  Bring in the experts
5.  I:am:the:orgasm

We dropped crowd pleaser Cutting the Bridges in Half as I just felt I wouldn't be up to it.  Despite everything, we went down really well again and we were all quite happy with the gig.  Headliners Chris Murphy and Boxer Genius were excellent - his band are extremely tight and talented and complemented Chris' traditional song writing well and giving it a modern touch.

Electric Picnic

Friday:

I woke up at 2.30am and Julie woke at 3.10am. A little obligitary rush and we got a taxi, then train, then plane, then bus, then coach to the festival. We pitched our tent, got some food and headed for the main arena. People call Electric Picnic a "mini-glastonbury" and they appeared to be right.

The first place we headed for was the Body and Soul area - a great little intimate place with the "chill out" stage, wishing wells, campfires, etc. Julie headed straight for the hammocks and then we watching a young lady for a couple of songs on the Chill out stage. After that we found a blackboard and I wrote Cats:for:peru's web address on. More about this place later.

As camping wasn't permitted the Thursday night, the music didn't start until around 5pm on the main stage with The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. A brilliant way to start the festival in the semi-sunshine. They played covers of Psycho Killer, Life on Mars, Teenage Dirtbag, Shaft and many others. Good harmless fun and good for a sing along. 7/10

Next up were Hot Chip. This was the 4th time I'd seen the band in a year and once again they didn't disappoint. 5 men all armed with synths and a guitar, and they can make you dance like nothing else. I think perhaps they were a little lost on the main stage though. Having seen them before in a relatively small Leadmill, they're much more a "club" band. 8/10

I then ran across to the Electric Arena to see the Manics. I watched around a 3rd of their set (the middle third) and thankfully caught sole Holy Bible track Faster which was stonking. The rest was a little MOR and what we've come to expect of the Manics of late - James Dean Bradfield still puts on a hell of a show though. 7/10

The main reason for missing the end of the set was to join Julie for Bjork on the main stage. She entered the stage with her backing musicians including Wonderbrass. She stormed through a set of songs off her new album Volta and mostly her "hits". Bjork really knows how to work a crowd without being cheesy and cliche and her tunes can carry her set alone. The visuals were a complete added bonus. Highlights were difficult to pick but with songs like Joga, Army of me, Declare Independence, Hyperballad you can't really go wrong. Probably the set of the festival. 9.5/10

Since we had been awake now a full 19/20 hours, we were far too tired to see any of Modest Mouse, Mr Scruff or LCD Soundsystem which was a massive shame.

We went back to our tent and tried to sleep. Trust our luck to be next door to a bunch of wankers. Some choice quotes for you:

"I NEED CLASS A'S!"
"I fucking went to meet fucking John and fucking Simon and fucking, yeah, grand"
"Last year we partied hard, we had soooo much sex and drugs!"

Please shut the fuck up.

Saturday: We arose early and took a walk to the main arena. We needed hats man. Hair was greasy already and hats would solve this. So we bought woolly hats. We went back to the Body and Soul area and returned to the blackboard to find my web address was underneath lots and lots of scribbles. And those scribbles were under the large lettering of the word "GAY". Excellent. We watched an Irish man called Liam O'Maoniani who played piano, guitar, recorder and sang. A nice chilled set for the morning and had great in between-song banter to go with it. 6/10

We then headed to a near empty Electric Arena and caught the back end of Shy Child's set. They are a two piece with a wicked drummer and a vocal/keyboardist (slung over his shoulder like a guitar). Obviously part of the "nu-rave" movement, this duo were actually not too bad although the vocals were a tad annoying - he sounding a little deaf and dumb come to think of it. 6.5/10

Next up were funksters !!!. Sporting around 8 members, they crashed onto the stage played the opening two tracks from new album 'Myth Takes'. As per, !!! got me dancing like a fool (but not as foolishly as vocalist Nick). Other sometimes-vocalist John appeared to be missing which didn't bother me too much until his replacement entered the stage. An overly-charismatic woman entered to take the parts of John and it kind of ruined it for me. She was very "pop" in her stylings - her dancing style and her shout outs of "come ooooon Dublin!" (I mean come on, we weren't even in Dublin!). She was only around for a couple of tunes so it didn't spoil it too much for me, but I've definitely seen them do better. 8/10

A small gap in anyone good being on and then over to the main stage to catch a couple of Easy Star Allstars tunes. They're known for releasing two covers-in-the-style-of-reggae albums - Dub Side of the Moon and Radiodread. They did sound like fun but we had to run across to the next band.

In a busy Nokia Trents Lab tent, 65daysofstatic playing a short put blinding set. I've probably seen the band more times than any other and I would rank this around the middle. Great performance non-the-less, even with the missing 'Retreat Retreat'. 7/10

We then got straight to the front to await Patrick Wolf. He then took to the stage wearing his usual leopard skin top with shorts and tall socks. He played a very very short set dogged with sound problems. His performance was outstanding as per usual but his backing band really grate me. There always seem to be sound issues and a lack of chemistry and around 3 times I caught members playing riffs one or two frets away from where it should be! Patrick, find yourself a new band and sort out your sound engineers! 7.5/10

We headed for the Foggy Notions tent to see Ratatat. Having never been in the tent, it was surprisingly very atmospheric and the lighting was complemented well with the low tent (and thus letting little natural light in). They entered the stage as a three piece - synths, guitar and bass and played to a backing of their instrumentals. The 2 "main" members gave a cracking show - rocking out like it was the main stage and it added to the experience. After a slow start, the set picked up and I really enjoyed it. 8.5/10

It was now decision time - do we see Final Fantasy or Simian Mobile Disco? Since we were in the mood to dance we went with the latter and it turns out we made a bad move. The Bodytonic stage and crowd were a bit too "Ibiza" and it was all a little underwhelming. We headed back to Final Fantasy who was 100 times better but we were right at the back. His use of looping violins was extraordinary though.

We now had an hour to get across to the Electric Arena to get a good place for the festivals biggest draw - Beastie Boys. The tent was already heaving and the atmosphere was great. When the boys took to the stage they didn't disappoint. Mixing up their set, they played some of their pre-label punk songs, their trademark rap songs and their newer instrumentals. All of it was brilliant and their set blew me away. Great rapping and stagemanship. Mixmaster Mike deserves a mention for his turn tabling too - amazing! 9.5/10

Next up were Chemical Brothers but as they were the only band on at that time (and hence no clashes) the main arena was miles too full and it was impossible to get anywhere near. So we left again.

Sunday: The next morning we headed back to the Chill out stage to see a performance from ex Damien Rice sidekick Lisa Hannigan. Of course, another chilled set from her - a great great voice and good musicians. Hunger did end up interrupting her set though so we only saw half of it. 6.5/10

Then was the biggest gap of the weekend of things not worth seeing. We did get to explore the site though and found a few shops and bars that we didn't realise existed.

Then came a clash that caused me and Julie to split (physically, not our relationship) - I went to see Bat for Lashes and she went to see Beastie Boys instrumental set. My venture came off a lot more successfully as Beastie Boys set time and venue changed so she missed it. Bat for Lashes played a very nice set in the Foggy Notions tent playing songs from her great debut album. Part Bjork, part Kate Bush, this group are definitely one for the future. 8/10

Torrential downpour followed and then off to the main stage for Sonic Youth. A surprisingly sparse crowd watched as they played a blistering set, top heavy with songs from Daydream Nation. Sonic Youth ended up surprising me, still edgy and fresh sounding at an older age and having got into them recently, they really lived up to their recordings and delivered a very enjoyable set, especially with 100%. 8.5/10

We headed to the Electric Arena to watch Unkle but the tent was far too full, so we headed back to the main stage to catch some of Iggy and the Stooges from far back. Always worth a laugh but not something I'm too bothered about seeing again any time soon.

The final act of the festival for us was Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet playing with legendary drummer Steve Reid. This duo have toured for a while now merging improvised electronics with beats. Most of the time, it really worked - this unusual pairing had great chemistry and a knowing look at each other when a killer part of the set was happening. A great way to end a great festival. 8/10





Festival highs
Amazing line up
Lots to do - PS3 tent was frequented a lot for example
A lot of emphasis on being eco-friendly
Irish accents
Mostly nice people there; a lot of friendly small talk from staff and festival goers alike

Festival lows
Awful pre-festival organisation
Confusing lay out
Rarely cleaned/restocked toilets
Extortionate food pricing
Drunken idiots

All pictures of this festival can be found on my Facebook right here.

Beneath a Steel Sky

So blogface, I think this is the end. My friend Simon alerted me to the outdoors at which I noticed everything appeared to be tinted yellow. I then looked up to see bizarre red and yellow clouds - worth a picture or two I thought:

Weird yellow to the left...

Zoomed up...

Independence Day..??

Crazy shit...

Crazy black and white bit?!

More Independece Day

Very strange I'm sure you'll agree.

Look out for my extensive review of Electric Picnic later...

D Sharps gig

So tonight was a Mentholmen covers gig at West Street Live.  I played with my one-off band called "The D Sharps" which consisted of me on vocals and guitar, Gaz on guitar, Kinny on bass and Tommy on drums.  

Setlist
1.  Gary Numan - Music for Chameleons
2.  Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
3.  Sonic Youth - 100%
4.  Pixies - Nimrod's Son
5.  Wild Cherry - Play that funky music

Had a great laugh doing this.  Dressed up in boiler suits, dust masks and sunglasses.  We were all a little drunk too and, with no pressure, came - played - and fucked off.   Well, I did.  But hey, was good stuff and the gig seemed to be going very well and was well attended.  Plenty of pictures on Facebook that I took with my brand new camera.

Also, while I remember, cats:for:peru have finally put tunes on our myspace... click here

Fuck da system

*yawn*

I am so damn tired.

I'm sat at work again and I just have no motivation. Work is not as bad as this blog makes out, you're never going to see me write a blog saying I'm enjoying work. Going back to the climate change issue from the below blog, part of me wants to try and get a job working on that. The motivation I think I need is to know I'm making a difference. In my current job, we're basically bending over backwards for brokers and there's nothing we can do about it. We need them, they don't need us.

Unfortunately, even though I should feel good at the "new me" re: the climate, it just makes me think things such as "How can I care about that when I eat animals and buy corporate goods that are made by children and underpaid farmers?". Bull fighting, fur-wearing, animal-fights...all of it sickens me, yet I still eat meat because I can't resist the taste and craving. Part of me wants to rebel against everything - sell all my material goods - fuck the internet, fuck TV, fuck the cans of coke, fuck my GAP jacket. But no, it's just not realistic. The most difficult thing in the world is to not be a hypocrite. Rage against the Machine signing to a major record label is a prime example. If you stand up for something you feel is right, people around you will always try and catch you out. This world is too full of corporate goods for it to be avoided - it's similar to Orwell's 1984 ... there was nothing left that he could do, he gave in and loved Big Brother (not the fucking programme).

Cats:for:peru gig #003

We played Grapes last night and once again pulled a great crowd and got a great response - we seem to be getting stronger every gig.  I'm also enjoying them more per gig; possibly due to the alcohol this time.  It did loosen me up to not worry about things too much.  We decided to mix the set up a bit and dropped A34 and threw in new song Bring in the experts.

Setlist
1.  The nobodies
2.  Last man in europe
3.  Tripwires and flashing lights
4.  Bring in the experts
5.  Manifesto
6.  Cutting the bridges in half
7.  I:am:the:orgasm

First band on were Balor Knights, fresh from having their keyboard stolen.  Never-the-less, they were excellent and very tight.  Not seen them since their first gig and they've come leaps and bounds since then.  Headliners Toasterazzu released their EP this night 
and they too were very good though maybe a little nervous, not too sure.  Great night alround.  We made £35 
which has gone towards an LED display to be seen at our next gig and beyond!  

So here I am on my dinner at work having just sat in the canteen with my colleague Tammy eating a ciabatta sandwich. All we really talked about was how boring work is at the moment. Up until recently, I have really enjoyed working here - of course it isn't my dream job and I'd rather be elsewhere, but it is alright. Recently, I'm not sure whether the job has progressively gotten worse or I'm just itching for something more, but it keeps creeping into my mind that I want to leave.

Though a vared job in the tasks I do, essentially I am sat behind a computer fake-smiling over the phone to people who, on the majority, are being arsey for the sake of it. Then the constant cycle of "we should do this" and "we shouldn't do that" and we're forever in a workforce-pergatory and I do feel like we're sliding into hell over time.

I'm just not passionate about what I'm doing. I've been thinking recently that I'd like to get involved in more big-picture problems, perhaps global warming. As much as I'd like to really push this passion and attend political rallies, write to my MP, try and be more economical in the office...I will have to stop being a hypocrite first. I sit next to a bin, and the recycle bin is about 3 metres away. I probably use them half-and-half for paper because I'm that lazy. It's a terrible personality trait to have and it's something I have to rid.

Another thing I have been
thinking about recently is doing something completely out of the ordinary (for me anyway). I've been looking into swimming The Solent which is the English coast to the Isle of Wight. This is only 3.5 miles but the waters are freezing and infested with sea-creatures and boats of all sizes. In this I can conquer my fear of the ocean but also have something accomplished that is actually worth being proud of. I'm fed up of the old "I'm Ad and I'm in a band" - I'd like to add something interesting to it.

Cats:for:peru gig #002

Last Thursday was our 2nd gig and we played at West Street Live.  Once again the place was busy and we'd managed to get a good crowd down.  I think I prefered this gig myself, less mistakes and I think we're relaxing more now and "feeling" it more.  The only errors were technical so hopefully they'll be ironed out before our next gig.

Setlist:

1.  Last man in europe
2.  A43
3.  The nobodies
4.  Manifesto
5.  Cutting the bridges in half
6.  I:am:the:orgasm

Also playing were The Subs who I missed as I went to The Grapes for a bit, I am Bandini who were pretty good and used to be called Fake Ideal.  Headline band was The Black Snatch Band and we must apologise - I went to get food, came back, and everyone had left bar a few!  It was quite late for a school night though..

Back from Portugal

Hello again Blogface,

So I went away to Portugal for 10 days with my beautiful girlfriend Julie. I guess a "review" of the holiday, if you will, will bore the shit out of you so briefly - we stayed by the pool, we went to the beach, we went to a waterpark and went to a zoo marine and didn't do much else. I also drove a Jetski which was amazing and terrifying in equal parts. Great fun though, just don't tell my mum... That's just the way I like my holidays though so I had an excellent time. If you want to see photos they are on my Facebook.


I did manage to get through 3 books Johnny 5 style (ok, maybe not that fast). They were 'Survivor', 'Choke' and 'Haunted' all by the same author, Chuck Palahniuk. All 3 were, although quite similar in style and main character/s, excellent and I couldn't put them down (damn glue on the cover). 'Haunted' is a book of short stories (with a main story interweiving) and the very first story is called 'Guts' and when Chuck read it out on his promo tour, 2 or 3 people fainted per reading! And looky here, the story is below;

http://www.seizureandy.com/stuff/guts.html

I would recommened his work to anyone who likes minimalist and nihilistic writing with black, black humour. He's like the Radiohead of the literature world - or not. I am currently starting another of his books - 'Invisible Monsters' and he has inspired me to start writing my own novel. I'll let you know how it goes...

Cats:for:peru gig #001

So we played at Grapes last night.   It went really well actually - thankfully a lot of people came down and it definitely helped things along.  We made a few mistakes but it was all worth it and I think we've got the ball rolling nicely and picked a few fans up along the way.

This is probably a bad idea but I'll link you to a couple of videos from the gig even though the sound cuts, the picture's shoddy, it's out of sync, the sound distorts and we don't move much.

Setlist:

1.  Last man in europe
2.  A34
3.  The Nobodies
4.  Unnamed ukulele song
5.  Cutting the bridges in half
6.  Tripwires and flashing lights
7.  I:am:the:orgasm

Babylonglegs headlined

Atoness - Every day is food tech day

So, I'm in 2 bands at the moment.  One is called cats:for:peru and our first gig is tomorrow night.  My other band has been going a couple of years and we're called Atoness.  This is Atoness' debut and thus far only album.   We recorded it with Neil Carden in his very black room.  Listen.  Enjoy.

Atoness - Every Day is Food Tech Day
 

The start of a beautiful thing

Well hello there,

I'm Ad and I've decided to jump on the proverbial band wagon and have started a blog.  I'll try and avoid using it as a diary so much, just more "my findings", views, random album uploads  and all that.  Or maybe this will be the last post I ever write.  No one's even reading are they?