The first single..I get it wrong.

Water Rats

Its so good to be playing again. There's a short tour starting to take shape around the single in november, and we look forward to seeing you there... We can't WAIT! If you want us to come to your town, let us know...

If you've forgotten what we look like.. here's a lovely piccie someone kind sent through - thanks Mr Miller...!

Jess xx

Car Accident.

Race drummer and all round good guy Andy was involved in a car accident last night on the way home from a gig in London. His car flipped onto its roof but miraculously he was unhurt and was able to crawl out of the window without any cuts or bruises. We went today to pick up his things from the car before it was scrapped, he was listening to our new single at the time and eerily it had stopped at the moment his car flipped..we pressed play today and on it went, unfortunately the stereo was pretty much the only thing left of any value. Andy is understandably shaken up but other than that ok. We are very thankful that he is ok, life and health are so easily taken for granted.

While Andy had the afternoon off we finished some filming for the second version of the video for this single, it is looking very beautiful indeed, the gig last night incidentally was a very special one..we were on unusually early (7.30pm) but the room filled out nicely and there was a wonderful light show which helped set the scene nicely. We now have a new manager by the name of Mr Roy Eldridge. He is a gentleman and has a wise experienced head, he is also good and tall which I think is always an important attribute in a manager/getting things done. We look forward to getting to know him better and making our first steps together.. rather like a romance. You will like him.

We got the promotional copies of our single and album back from the manufacturers yesterday and are now looking forward to our team getting into the full swing of letting people know that we are back and have something for them to hear. We are hopefully going to head up to London on Monday to personally hand deliver the first couple of copies too..I think we learnt from Pass It On that nothing beats making the effort to hand over your music in person. Next friday night we are headlining the main venue at Reading Students Union, it should provide a nice hometown gig for this month and non students can come too..I think its £4 on the door without NUS, bargain..and its freshers week.

not long now..

We are still here, don't go away.

x

Cottage Industry.

Another crazy week of getting things ready and trying to meet deadlines, in three hours on Monday afternoon I wrote and recorded my lyrics for a new b-side with Gra. By Tuesday night we were running a little behind so had an 8pm artwork meeting at the del Rio's. We we have to have the new single and the album promo artwork ready to pass on to the Shifty Disco tomorrow. We were struggling for ideas and I was keen to get home to my little family so I asked Jess for some paper and paint (the others laughed)..this is what happened, I wasn't sure but they seem to like it so it may well stick. I then went back home and left them to it. 'My work here is done'. Highly amusing.

I was thinking this week that we exist very much as a cottage industry with us each having numerous roles within the band/partnership. As well as our musical jobs, between us we seem to cover;

bus driver
recording engineer/mixer/producer
tailor
baker
graphic designer
communications executive
first aider (!)
comedian
tough guy
athlete
merchandiser
drummer
dog walker
caterer
masseuse..

I guess the tricky/easy part is trying to work out who does/is what.

Tomorrow thankfully we shall get back to our favourite way of passing time with a gig at the brand new Windsor Arts Centre (old firestation) its with our old friends Sennen who are on a national tour, we'll both be playing an extended set so it should be pretty good, doors are 7.30pm and we shall be on at 8.30pm, early night..yeah.

lots of things..

We are crazy busy trying to get eveything ready in order to promote the first single in October and the new album release in January. In times like these we tend to split the work out a little, Gra has been recording and mixing the b-sides for the single, James is sorting out artwork with our boy Tom, I'm desperately trying to write lyrics and push through my fuzzy head/new baby mode, Jess has been working on t-shirts/videos and Andy has invested in a new cymbal and has done lots of recording with it?. Last night we played Greenbelt Festival which was good..it was Maisie's first festival and probably the most baby friendly festival you could ever go to, saw a bit of iain archer and an american lady with a ukeleli (?) she was good. Moorwood went down beautifully which for me is always the sign of a good gig, the quiet songs are always the hardest to pull off.

I'm supposed to be writing out all the lyrics to the album but I really can't be bothered, I keep putting it off as I am so slow at typing. We found out this week that IMHIW will also be getting a release in Japan on Korofune records which we are delighted about..bring on the tour!! We're also going to be making our way over to Italy in November to support the release of Be Your Alibi over there and to eat some nice food/play gigs and to meet our italian team, gigs over here are starting to come in nicely. We're basically planning on working our butts off between now and January to give this album the push it deserves and to give it a good enough platform for loads of new people to hear it.

All the new dates get put up on our myspace page, so check it daily as they are coming in fast. If you don't own Be Your Alibi you can buy it from www.oxfordmusic.net for £4.99..supermarket prices!! and it means that more profits get hrough to us than through the usual bigger places. Stakes are doing so well. I keep hearing terrible stories about bands being dropped all over the place and industry people losing their jobs and that directly affecting the bands who they are responsible for-- its really harsh. We count ourselves lucky to be on such a solid record label and with an awesome well thought out way of making it all work financially where we know that our music will actually get released! My friend Tim introduced me to seth lakeman yesterday, he spoke alot of sense and thought the Stake idea was very clever indeed. I should have offered him one come to think of it.. (details are on www.inmyheaditworks.com )

I had better go, I can hear crying. Tomorrow begins with a cooked breakfast at james and jess' house. yum.

*NEW VIDEO*

Paternity leave is over. I'm back. Yesterday we shot the video for the next single; I get It Wrong.

We were working with a new director Mr Rob Evans who is probably one of the most enthusiastic people we have ever had the pleasure of spending a day with. We were kindly allowed the use of Reading cattle market for the day and a wonderful group of volunteers basically made it all happen. I still can't believe that people would give up a whole day to help us out like they did yesterday, the least i can do is thank them here..( I hope I got everybody's name)

Dan Appleby, SFL,

Lou Evans, Nicola,

Kelly Lambert, Mr Fogg, Rachie,

Dave Newton, Catalina, John,

Estie, Gabrielle, Rob,

Beth ,Mr Capoeira (sorry), Nathan,

Rufus ,Hettie and all the cattle market people..

You guys were unbelievable on a cold, wet, precious Saturday. We can't wait to see the results, feel free to try and figure out what we did and how we did it from the pictures, we're back rehearsing hard this week and finishing off the two b-sides for the single which should be out in October. Thanks for all the messages of congratulation, fatherhood is good, I learn so much every day. Today has involved several bouts of projectile vomit. dan