Piano Dancing

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This video was shot while working on the next Sancho record. The thing that I'm jumping up on down on and the others are hitting with hammers and crowbars is the frame of the worst piano I've ever played, which I also had the misfortune to own. I wrote "Dormitor" on it, and probably some other things too, but it was so horrible that I was unable to form any kind of sentimental attachment to it, so when we found we had to vacate Betika Towers, rather than go to the trouble of moving it, it got ripped apart and the bit you see us abusing got used as a sort of natural echo chamber and collaborative percussion instrument, which is what we're doing in the vid.

Evil Betika

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Chris discovered today what happens when you run "Betika" past the spell-checker on a mac...

Sancho LP in shops!

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At long, long last, Sancho's second album "Mystery Year" has been released! All the important stuff about it (where you could get it if you wanted it, what those in the know who have heard it thought of it, etc) is on the Seed Records website. It warrants mention here due to it's high headcount of Betika guest appearances - Caz sings some of the songs, Chris plays guitar on it, and I can be heard straining to force notes out of the end of a trumpet in places. There will be Sancho shows happening in the near future in locations near and distant, I will let you know more about them sooon.

New SK noise

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Here's a couple of bits of video our Martin shot of Chris, Lee, Mooro and me making some startlingly scratty sounds at the most recent SK5 show.


The SK5 - "Slound"



The SK5 - "The Intelligent Mechanick"

Set List from Tuesday

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If you were there and were curious, these are the songs we played;

The Mark - newie with lots of brass and lots of singing. Imogen made her Betika trumpet debut and Lexi and Chris popped their vocal cherries.
Bob Hope - with an accapella introduction caused by unplugged bass. Must tighten up the changeovers!
Pink Hulk - an oldie revisited.
The new shrew - Caz and Imo doing lovely girlie harmonies. Due to be taken to the studio shortly.
Long slow fade - very short new song with big joyous trumpet outburst where the chorus should be.
Dormitor - we really cocked this up due to me trying to be clever. Imogen had cramp in her fingers so I played the first verse v. slow, then we all came back in at the right speed in a way that verged on slick. Opinions differed though on how many more verses there should be and it ended in a trainwreck.
I killed a fly - old and recorded but not yet released. To be rectified soon hopefully.
The Castle - a song we haven't played for probably two years, radically remodeled around galloping rhythm section.
The Missionary - newish, third time out, lots of shouting.
Twenty-five - our friends Frances and Jane were both celebrating, and this is the only song we've got about birthdays.

A Valentine's Thing

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This extremely pink flyer (created by our friend Frances aka Animal Magic Tricks) has written upon it all the important details pertaining to the gig we're doing on Wednesday next week, which also happens to be an important day for greetings card manufacturers, florists and chocolatiers. Curious about St Valentine and what he did in order to become patron saint of greetings card manufacturers, florists and chocolatiers, (oh, and "secret admirers" (stalkers)), I looked him up on Wikipedia, and it turns out that not even the Vatican knows exactly who he was (he could have been one of three people) or a single thing about him (regardless of which of the three he actually was), leading me to conclude that it is far and away the most tenuously over-commercialised of the formerly religious feasts. I'm not at all against the whole love and affection thing, just the idea that we should feel more loving and affectionate on an arbitarily chosen date, and demonstrate this with the purchase of certain traditional tokens at artificially inflated prices. You should treat your significant other the best you can every single day. So cancel the supposedly romantic dinner you had planned at a restaurant that crams doe-eyed couples in like battery hens and bring the love of your life along to see us and the other fine bands! And if the poster is to be believed, a squirrel and a shrew slap-fighting each other to the death! We will be trying out a few new songs; we have one about a biblical curse, one about the ever-present threat of demonic possesion, and one about things getting better. We've also been working on a couple of songs dealing with triumph in the face of disfunction, and I've foolishly begun work on a song written mostly in phrasebook Japanese (with at least one line of German), to be sung in four-part harmony. I can't see the band thanking me for that one.

Last night we saw a male and female deer, and about thirty seconds afterwards a pair of Barn Owls. This morning we saw a five-car pile-up.