So, I’ve been totally rubbish and haven’t blogged about my experience in Bury St Edmunds yet. SORRY LOL. Still no internet. I know that excuse is getting tired. But it doesn’t make it any less true.
Quick point before I continue – self-defeating song titles. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Are we all secretly insecure about our music, and so give our songs really self-defeating names like “I’ve Got Nothing” and “Imperfections” and “Can’t” and “Erase This”? (That’s in no way a dig at anyone else’s work, obviously ^^)
Anyway, this forced me to consider how many of my own songs have such names; fortunately, there are only some vaguely doubtful ones on my new album (“Not Just Yet”, “Stay With Me”) as opposed to the flat-out worry on my first release (No More! Hold On! Don’t Look Back!).
The Bury gigs went alright, but we were restricted in a lot of ways. The ‘big show’ on Saturday evening was played in a village hall type area, where the space was restricted and we had to mix the sound ourselves, leaving us panicked and cramped for a lot of the set. We played a ‘casual’ show earlier in the day where we just played whatever we felt like, some new songs, some covers, and that actually went much better because we took turns dicking around and were less worried about getting the sound right and nailing each song. I think Eyelashes was played, Exterminate Regenerate broke out at one point … my first song was ‘Show Me Your Genitals’, which seemed like a fantastic idea before the gig started but wasn’t so much when we stared into the sea of disapproving dad faces.
The following night, Tom and I played what certainly became my favourite gig ever; the two of us fucked about in the Nutshell, which was a local pub near to where we were staying. I’d love to tell you that we packed the place out, but sadly, we didn’t. This on its own wouldn’t be too much of a big deal, but it becomes more humiliating when you discover that The Nutshell is the smallest pub in Britain. (Or Europe, Tom says. Or perhaps the world. It’s constantly being challenged.)
Here’s a sign on their wall:
I used Ed’s guitar, Tom brought his uke, his accordion and his toy piano, and we played everything we could think of to an unassuming Bury woman and her Seattle-based boyfriend, who clapped and chatted with us and generally helped us all have a lovely time.
So that was the Bury gig, and I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you about it. There will surely be more gigs soon, hopefully in more places; for now, we’re all working on cool things together (including working on Ed’s new album) and as soon as we know more, you’ll be the first to know :D
x
