Well Qualified for The Position

This is a special Smokey Bastard announcement.

Let's all join hands and wish Mr. Wood (of Smokey Bastard bass and vocals) lots of luck getting funding for his PhD, because there's lots of competition and we all want the best for him in his career. We know this is a big deal and we're taking you seriously, big man.

We're all doomed!

At some point they had to write down ON PAPER the process of MAKING PAPER. This is centuries old self perpetuating technology! The end may have already begun...

- Mike

Bellowhead Bellowsession

I keep forgetting to say: Pat and I went to London's South Bank on September 21st where there was a huge food festival going on around the Festival Hall to join in with a session with the most impressive Bellowhead, where I had a chance to chat with Andy the trumpet player at some length (mostly complaining about how hard it is to pick up their stab-filled brass lines) and even catch a few moments of their rehearsal as they let us leave our instruments in their room at the Festival Hall.

Pat was rocking the flute for portability reasons, and I was playing trumpet or bodhran depending on whether the key was manageable for improv - and we brought along a few friends for the party including the folkier-by-the-day Rachel Marshall on clarinet and swooning duty.

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a couple of minutes chatting with every single member of bellowhead as I put one of our demos into each of their talented mitts, so I hope one or two of them listened to it.




I also kept saying 'hopefully see you on the festivals circuit next year'. Ahem. Well, you never know, right? Perhaps on the strength of the new album!

And I gave a CD to a youngish man who wanted to start a morris dancing troupe in Reading and was thinking that Smokey Bastard could be his band, or he could maybe come do some one-man-morris at some of our gigs. Stangely enough having had an opportunity to listen to our CD I don't think he's tried to contact us - I wonder why ever not?

Vaguely on this note, just because I enjoy splashing bands about here are some groups and bands I am currently enjoying, both old discoveries and new

Bellowhead (Old favourites: always a good sign when 'plays' outnumber 'profile views' on myspace. going to see them at Koko on the 30th!)

Let's Tea Party (something of a wild card, saw them play with Portland Rise last weekend)

The High Kings (These guys are a bit too slick and moneyspinning, but their 'Rocky Road To Dublin' is by far the best I've heard it done, heard it on Radio 2's wednesday evening folk program)

Terrafolk (These guys are utterly, utterly spectacular live but a bit so-so on these recordings, nonetheless you can not afford to miss their surreal version of 'You Are My Sunshine')

Bad Science (These guys have been in my top five for years and probably will be for a long time, might try and get to see them at the Southampton Soul Cellar on the 28th.)

Rachel Unthank and the Winterset (Thanks to Rachel Garforth for this one, wide eyed child winter folk, can't decide about the music on the myspace really, but it's intriguing - and if you can find 'Blue's Gaen Oot O'the Fashion' anywhere, it's brilliant.)

Jackson Jackson (If you loved loved loved The Cat Empire like I did, don't assume you'll like their trumpet player/singer Harry's side project, which is brilliant but utterly different. Listen out for an unexpected folk traditional in 'Cats, Rats and Pidgeons'!)

Ed, Will and Ginger a-walking-o (Mike found this one and Carrie showed me, it's Coope, Boyes and Simpson - esque, but with a bit more youth and poshness to it)


-Alex

Fire unicycle

This is Pete from the Southampton University Circus Society. His unicycle is on fire. This may or may not be completely badass.

Plug over,
- Mike

What a fucking great idea.

Once upon a time I was reading the blog/street art diary of a guy named Poster Child. There was a post in particular that for some reason stuck in my mind although at the time I failed to act on it. It wasn't until recently that I decided to give it a go, although on the more personal domain of my own house.

The idea is as follows: Cut out a paper (or card) moustache that is preferably curly. Stick that to the front of your television. Laugh and make merry every time someone's face lines up with said moustache. Here are some pictures:



With the television turned off.



John Cleese match 01



John Cleese match 02

These are just some examples of the possible hilarity. Best played under the influence of alcohol and an abundance of like minded (inebriated) housemates.

The relevant Post

Enjoy?
- Mike

Recording

"A fortnight!" we said.

"No problems!" we said.

"Rhythm section in a week or less!" said we.

Smokey Bastard have been in the "studio" now for about two and a half weeks, and have completed:

Kit
Percussion
Bass
Electric guitars

Leaving us still yet to do:

Bodhran
Bouzouki
Mandolin
Banjo(?)
Accoustic Guitars
Fiddle
Whistles
Accordion
piano(?)
brass
harmonica
aaaaaall the vocals
and then be pissed for a day or so with the tape rolling for some atmosphere
(and I'm sure there's more)

Ahem

On the don't-care-much-that-it's-taking-a-while-really hand though, it's shaping up to sound pretty much like we've all been hoping; some of my personal favourite bits so far include:

backwards stuff
mad orchestral percussion stuff
hugely over-epic guitar sounds (12 channels per guitar line in some places)
the emergence of balls-to-the-wall shitfisted riotous high speed...folk...

But

Today, when starting to EQ some of our tracks, Aled (our engineer/mixer) asked me this question:

"Do you want it to kick you in the face, or punch you in the guts?"

Please note that there is no third option - whatever happens this record is going to injure you. Roll on week four!

Alex


P.s. we've got loads of footage to wack up here in the next few weeks, and we'll try to make that happen, so don't forget to watch this space...Both of you...

Babar Luck

Just a quick one.

The other night we played with Babar Luck at the Cross Kings in Kings Cross. It was awesome.

Alex decided during Babar's set that he wanted to pack up his kit and leave and, understandably, Babar did not take kindly to this. Subsequently, Alex got a telling off in front of everybody and I had a bit of a chuckle.



That's him telt.

Chris

A Return to Bastard Form

Yawn

I started writing my first blog in months last night at about seven o clock, and believe me I was writing with a wit, vim and fervour that would have knocked you off your seats! In fact, so full of energy was I, after the last few weeks of getting up at 6.30 every day to either go to work (photo, left) or take my sister to work and then four hours of SB rehearsals at Plug n Play yesterday, I fell asleep while typing and fell off my own chair, and then slept for 13 hours on my bedroom floor. With my head on a Mr Kipling lemon slice.

Yaaawn

This is literally the first thing I'm doing having woken up very confused and nibbling on lemon icing from my ear (photo, right), and I've got to get to another SB practice by eleven, via Drumwright. As a result, you're getting no wit, zero fervour, and the diametric opposite of vim (which is 'crust') as I race through what would assuredly have otherwise been a very measured and thoughtfully constructed blog entry:

We're going to record an album; the prospect of doing it with John Leckie and Barry Barlow is both closer and further from becoming reality but we're working hard to make it happen.

We've got some gigs, and seeing as we're often too lazy to ask anyone for them we need to get offered more - go to our myspace to listen and contact us.

Very soon we shall be announcing the exciting appearance of our Live in the Christmas Room Acoustic Album/DVD with a raft of new videos and clips online. Watch various online SB spaces, if not this one.

(Grumble) *Hack!* Cough

The other (and main) reason I'm bothering to do this again today (last night's offering was wiped when blogger timed out), EVEN with exceedingly good cake on my face, is that I would like very much for you to see our second video blog entry, which I chucked together yesterday. You'll notice that this time it was only filmed on a mobile phone, and is comprised of footage of a fairly limited genre of activity from our weekend away. This is because in a fairly friendly way we don't much give a shit about this blog, we're only doing it to make each other laugh. Noticed?!

It's too early for this, I'm going to get some juice

Our weekend, by the way, kicked good old english arse: first an appearance in Bath Folk and Ale Festival at the Royal Oak, followed by free bar all night, followd by camping illegally, followed by a six hour drive to Durham just to see Youngblood Brass Band, who absolutly fucking rocked, putting themselves easily in te top two of best bands I have ever seen live - only missing first place because the Durham crowd were a load of squares, kids and mums who stayed sat in their numbered seats applauding politely, and because their set was a slightly dissapointing hour long. Seriously, check these guys out - there is no better mix of genuine musicality and raw unfettered drive than Youngblood, and I hope somebody quotes me.

Temporary Setbacks...

Hey all. Time for a band update…

We have (mostly) returned from our respective uni towns and are once again ready to be in a shit hot celtic punk band. Exams are over and now nothing… well…. now only two things can stand in our way:

Thing in the way number one: Pat has chosen to blemish his impeccable record of unrelenting punctuality, reliability and enthusiasm by deciding on a whim to cycle around Germany, I assume for no other reason than to inflate his ego with regards to how “good” he is at cycling on a bike cycle.

The second problem is that I have paralyzed myself to such an extent that I currently have to be lowered into bed. Luckily it’s just a muscular back injury and will heal soon but while visiting the doctor I was also I informed I might have some sort of lanky disease which means you die from being tall or something… or at least in some cases it lowers your life expectancy but only if you’re some kind of nonce… I don’t know. Anyway I’m gonna find out on Thursday. Its called Marfan’s syndrome but I’ve already decided if I do have it, I’m calling it either Joey Ramone or Robert Johnson syndrome as they had it and it sounds better that way, but I doubt it will come to that…

We also have gigs soon so check the old myfacespace.com

- Matt

His Royal Highness the Prince of Cuddles

So there we were, Steve, Matt, Ken and myself were coming home from the Hobbit one warm May evening after a light celebration of Steve's birthday. As we were completing the inevitable crawl back to me and Matt's house for inevitable after pub drinks (Steve got wine from people for his birthday) we stopped suddenly. It appears Steve had kicked something in the face. Matt bent down and saw that it was a stag beetle.

The stag beetle was taken home with it's fork like feet firmly attached to Matt's hands and was thereby dubbed His Royal Highness the Prince of Cuddles in the memory of our yet to be purchased ferrets. Seemingly unresponse to most form of stimuli, incense smoke seemed to be the only thing that perked him up. Since none of us were coleopterists, we had no idea if this was a good or bad thing.

He was kept for a day or two in a pint glass stuffed full of lettuce, figuring him to be a herbivore. He promptly escaped leaving the lettuce untouched. Luckily Matt found him close to his tiny see-through prison and we decided that it would be best for him to let him go. After taking lots of photos.

We'll miss you HRH...
- Mike

P.S. We don't know whether it was because Steve kicked him in the face or whether stag beetles are just shit, but his pincers were rubbish, causing no feeling in the fingers other than a light pinch.

Daytime TV

So there we were watching the most drab and mundane television possible, when the idea of owning a pet came to mind. After brief discussions with house mates, it's possible that we here in Southampton may be getting a ferret or two. This has two benefits:

a) We get to freak people out by not telling them we have any pets and then when they say things like "hey, did anyone hear anything?" we respond nonchalantly with such phases as "oh, you're probably imagining things". Then we get the ferrets to be naturally curious about ankles and boom! Pranks akimbo.

b) We no longer have to pick up any food that we drop.

There is a problem, however, with what to name them. After much deliberation, my housemate Matt came up with the best two:

a) Colonel Marmalade

b) His Royal Highness the Prince of Cuddles

Basically, I'm asking if anyone else can think of anything better.
- Mike

So...

Boris Johnson is Mayor of London.


Boris...

...Johnson.

Boris "Section 28" Johnson.

Has the country gone utterly mental? I can only assume that the country has gone utterly mental.

I only wanted Mario Kart

On Tuesday, my mate dug out the N64 which, after but a few minutes, gave me a hankering for some Mario Kart. Dan and I immediately went out to try and find a copy of Mario Kart satiate this craving. This was about two in the afternoon.

I awoke hungover Wednesday morning, in Bristol, with a crowd of strangers.

I don't live in Bristol. I don't know strangers.

I did not get Mario Kart.

-Chris

Christmas Room

Ok, so we've been a little lax lately as to updating our "at least once a week" blog, but with good reason. On Saturday we all crammed ourselves into the festively titled "Christmas Room" at Matt's house and played our little acoustic hearts out to a few friends and family. Don't worry, we're not just nice guys who do nice things to the people who help us out, we actually had an ulterior motive.

We played our acoustic set to our trusted sound engineers Aled and Matt "the Sound" in order for them to record us. In the mixing stage as we speak, the live acoustic album which is yet to be titled will soon be able to be bought from gigs.

It was a peculiar experience. Cameras at every angle, including one IR camera that made everyone's hair look grey, were surprisingly easy to get used to. We started rolling and the pressure was on. We took a while to get swinging, but once we did, we accidently started having fun. The energy of the later songs is apparently something to behold and which I personally look forward to after only the preliminary mixes played through tiny speakers to go on.

A video is also being editted by a kind gentleman I was not introduced to, hopefully one of the band will reply with all the necessary props he's due. No idea when he'll be done since he's doing it in his spare time, but this means the next few updates will probably have some footage snippets from the event, so keep checking back.

Stay festive,
- Mike

Spot the deliberate mistakes

Macca and Matt told me all about some excellent japanese band we were listening to in my car on the way to the Leytonstone gig, who apparently sit down immediately after every gig and watch a video of the whole performance in order to learn how to do it better next time. Who are they again? Can't remember...they wear matching visors, I seem to remember...

We prefer to try and get good BEFORE we play, but in this particular case (since for whatever reason the gig was a bit shambolic) I think a breakdown of this video someone posted onto our myspace page would at least be a good way to piss off the rest of the band:




1) Inexplicable northen accent on my part

2) I'm sharp by maybe as much as a third when the guitars come in

3) Sophie's flat as a pancake when she comes in

4) Mike's got flowers all over his mic stand - what a gay

5) Matt 'never learnt the melody'

6) Macca and i don't come in together for the last verse

Any more? Andy's laughing at the end, and it makes me suspicious... We'll have none of this 'merriment' thank you very much...

-Alex

Easter and all that.

Hello,

no video this update, but I figured one should happen since it has been more than a week since the last. I presume you're doing well?

This week a lot of the band have been involved in various studious activities. For some of us it's the final year of our uni course, which involves the mad rush of finishing our dissertations before the end of April. Luckily we have a shed load of gigs in April so we're trying to finish as much as we can now. This means that unlike we planned, we have neither recorded anything, nor written many new songs.

Not to worry, I'm sure everyone's coming up with new material on their own, but all I can think about is the Neverhood.

Better luck next time,
- Mike

Something a little bit different:

Enjoy! It's another little bit of my actual degree gone forever...

You may notice there isn't any footage from either of the actual gigs we played this weekend. Correct.

-Alex

The Three Guineas on St. Paddy's day

Last night was a first timer for Smokey Bastard - we actually played in an Irish Bar. For the first of the two St. Paddy's day gigs this weekend, we took on the Three Guineas- the pub on the Reading station platform.

A 14 hr day

After a heavy seven hours of rehearsing both old and very new tunes, burning pizzas, watching rugby and generally fart arsing about, the Smokey Bastard train headed on over to the Three Guineas, where in true style we caused havoc to all those in our path and managed to block off the majority of the bus park outside the station for a good 20 minutes. By 8.45, and with a good crowd in front of us, we were ready to go - but our 'working day' was to last for many more hours!

Set and Match

With both Wales and England victorious in the rugby and the irish with a saint to celebrate, the evening was set to be one of celebration. Our first set started with Mrs McGrath, and was an almost entirely acoustic spasm; the crowd were in good form, and much jigging, singing, falling over and guiness drinking was had by all.

The second set saw a somewhat large increase increase in volume as we played through a noisy punk set, which we thoroughly enjoyed. By this point the audience were generally getting more wobbly- the floor became strewn with a few drunken casualties who'd jigged just that bit too far. [Ivo has ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE OF RHYTHM - Alex]

Mais oui, ma mère est dans l'arbre

By half 10 it was all over, after an encore of Mrs McGrath and Steve the Twat. An hour or so and a whole lot of free Guiness later we finally left the Three Guineas and headed back over to the Ness family care home, where further drinking and merriment was had around the burning stove out in the wonderfully atmospheric christmas...shed...

Most notably, a large portion of the evening was carried out in completely nonsense french, while we ate hot buttered crossed buns and put the world right on our terms. Drunken, tired, contented terms at that.

En plus...

Two more days of rehearsing and then a Leytonstone gig - here we come!

-Sophie [with interfering by Alex...]

"Go Long!"

"I Am Long..."


Working backwards from the joint premises that:

• we all have a strong primal urge to throw whatever we've got to anyone who holds up their hands half cupped together in the cross-cultural sign for 'pass it here!'

and

• when throwing things it's obligatory to shout 'go long' on the offchance that the catcher will retort 'I am long', facilitating everybody's feeling rather smugly witty,

we at Bastard have calculated that shouting "I am long!" obliges anyone in the area to throw to/at the shouter whatever object they can fastest throw in his/her direction.

This has turned out to be really useful if someone's holding something you want, since they'll usually end up throwing whatever's in their paws already, even if they don't particularly want to give it up. Also handy if you're feeling cruel and someone is holding something like a slice of their favouritest cake in the whole world (and you feel ready to dodge it).

Just so that I can feel I've covered all the bases, I should say please don't attempt to take advantage of this if you're sat in a particularly large crowd on a pebbly beach, or similar - we've already had some fairly serious biscuit incidents and wouldn't want you to get caught out like we were.

(Better than dubious social commentary, right?)

-Alex

Nefarious Various

I am a music man/
I come from far away/
And I can play./
What can you play?/
I play the Gee-tar.

Last weekend, during songwriting, it became clear that Matt couldn't play a scale from a given note ("I've never needed to, shut up!" etc.).

He kept trying, while everyone around him yelled "TONE TONE SEMITONE TONE TONE TONE SEMITONE" in increasingly incomprehensible tones of exasperation and spit-flecked rage, but he was basically trying to do it chromatically no matter what we screamed and jabbered at his perplexed little eyebrows.

Finally, exhausted from such eye-rolling, slavering apoplexy, the band quietened down enough to offer some resignedly damage-limitating advice: "look Matt, it's really not very often a semitone. If in doubt, assume it's not a semitone."

A pause.

"If in doubt, skip a fret, don't just go up to the next one", comes the hopeful rephrase.

*matt looks frantically at the low E string he's playing the scale on*

"skip a fret?" (he looks up, petrified) "I'm going to run out!"

[Cue aploplectic jabbering part II.]

Gigs

As the academic year moves into it's final stages and the days begin to lengthen into evenings, our schedule is happily beginning to get more busy again. At the moment it's still not much but there are already one or two dates not quite up there yet, including the intriguing notion that we might play at the opening of a 'community garden squat project' organised by some punks in Reading.

Make Punk, not war

This brings me to something bastard have been talking about for a while: I don't care what they say, punks under the age of about 25 are all just hippies with leather jackets and slightly less girly hair.

"Community garden squat project"?! Since when did punks do that? What happened to "shit on the community, it's a cunt"? That's what I'd like to know.

I suppose in honesty it's a good thing that punks havn't given up the aesthetics of their movement (the clothes, the music, the politicism) and have started to care about the environment and are nice to their mummies as well (we're nice to our mummies).

But punks are basically a remnant of a previous generation, and it's heartbreaking but I recon - uhoh, controversial statement - that chavs are the only original 00's subversive youth culture. Wanky, but true, kids. We've got about two years to sort this out before this was the decade of chavs and emo. Time for:

A folk uprising!
Lock up your maidens and get out the battle hoe, this fair country will jig to a new tune...