Ether City

In two weeks (and a few hours) my band¹ Ether City will be playing their first acoustic gig. You may wonder what it takes for an electric rock band to walk down the road of unplugged mellowness. It's actually quite simple. It takes someone saying, "Will you play an acoustic gig, please?"

I'm really looking forward to this one, and particularly to the new sounds. There's an all-new set list with some really great harmony passages; Jim has his new acoustic bass for most tracks and a mandolin for a few; and I'll be pulling out my old harmonica for a few songs². It's going to sound very different from the other songs we play, and I think, rather cool.

If you can make it - and I hope you can - these are the details:

The time: Music from 8pm, Ether City starts at 9:45pm
The date: Monday 16th July.
The place: The Old Queen's Head, 44 Essex Road, Islington
The nearest tube: Angel
The map: http://tinyurl.com/3yczog

Be sure to bring along a copy of this flyer, which will give you a pound off entry and give the band a little recognition from the promoters...

¹ Mine in the sense of My School & My Country, not in the sense of My Toys and My Pram.

² Incidentally, Stevie Wonder: Best harmonica player ever.

We - that is, Ether City - have just posted up some new mp3s. There's one light number - Don't Let Yourself Down - and one heavy one - Right Now. You can listen & download both from here.

We've pretty much got the 'what' sorted. Now we're tweaking the 'how'...

Quick announcement: Our new band, Ether City has a website.

Take a look at the site, and please, let me know what you think.

Oh, and feel free to help me shamelessly promote it, and our next gig on the 3rd Jan 2007, at the Metro Club on Oxford St, London.

I'm not even going to apologise for posting this:

You have no idea how much I'm digging us starting this band. I think everyone's having a great time, and I'm bloody loving it. It's great; it's fab; being in a band you respect is about the best thing in the world. Let's have a photo of Jim looking cool:

I have this philosophy about booze: I like it. I always think of myself as something of a "French alcoholic", which is a term I should explain. I've heard it said that in certain parts of France it's very hard to classify people as alcoholics or not, because their drinking habits are strange. They only drink a glass a night with a meal, but they take it religiously and find it hard to cope if their booze is taken away from them. So are they alcoholics or not, or do they need a new term entirely? Whatever, I think I'm a bit like that. "Little, but usually" is my motto.

Earlier this week I sat down to write a list of Woes. I'm having some rough luck at the moment, and writing a list is a poor man's exorcism. As it turned out, I could only manage nine woes, and most of them will resolve themselves if I just keep my head down for a few weeks, so it's not too bad. One of them is boozelessness, and that disappears on Tuesday. Hurrah.

But I needed some cheering, and I've got two recommendations for you. Thud is Terry Pratchett's latest paperback, and it's quite possibly the best thing he's ever written. It's page-turning, brilliantly written, and laugh-out-loud funny. I was getting strange looks on the tube last night because I was clearly guilty of that most British of crimes, Displaying Glee In A Public Place.
The other thing worth recommending is Little Miss Sunshine. It's one of the funniest fillums I've watched in ages. That's not a particularly sparkling way to review a film, but it's true. So there you are: Recommendationage.

Oh, and one other thing: Bandillity. We - being Jim-Bob, Little Jim-Bob, The Glimmer Twins and I - are starting a new band. There'll be more to say about it as time goes on, but it's bringing a big ol' grin to my face at the moment. We'll be playing all-original rock stuff, and I think it's going to be great fun. The first gig's in January, so stay tuned...