Karma To Burn

We had a complaint on our website recently about the promotional campaign for the Zapatista benefit gig we played a few weeks ago. There were posters everywhere, all over the meadows, on bins, lampposts, shopping carts, dogs, pigeons, everywhere. I completely sympathise with the complainer, who remained anonymous, I don’t like to see our lovely city centre vandalised in this fashion. We’re a world heritage site for fuck’s sake!  What will the tourists think.  However I would like to point out to everyone that we had nothing to do with the promotion of that gig, which was entirely the responsibility of the Edinburgh Chiapas solidarity group who put the thing on. Just wanted to clear that up. Having said that, I personally couldn't give a fuck if some posters ruined the ambience of the Meadows for some joggers, the gig was a success and raised almost two grand in the end, to help furnish a medical centre, for some of the poorest people in the world. Who knows, it may help save some kids lives. I think littering the Meadows is a small price to pay perhaps. 

Whoa boy!  Sorry, that was me getting off my high horse.  He's a beauty.

So it came to pass that we played Bannermans the following week with no promotion at all, no posters, no flyers, nothing, except for our MySpace spamming which is much worse for the online environment I'm sure. Actually we put up one A4 poster in our practice room at Verden, to remind us I guess, but that was it. The lack of posters didn’t stop 200 of you turning up for one of the busiest nights that Bannermans has ever seen. This MySpace malarkey could be quite useful.  Have we finally seen the end of evenings driving around town with buckets of wallpaper paste?  Thanks to everyone for coming down. Thanks to Esperanza for the excellent support, again. The set featured our first performance of our suite in E flat, “All the Guys In The Nightclub (Want to Sleep With You)”, “Don’t Give It All Away” and “ The Day The Earth Stood Stupid” which was not bad, considering the tropical heat. I agree with everyone that it was far too hot and there were far too many people there. Sorry about that. We only did it because we were skint.  Just like that incident in the toilets that time.  At one point there was so much sweat and condensation were running off the walls and ceilings, it was drizzling indoors. All our gear was soaked. At the end of the set normally we would walk off stage and that would be that, but because in Bannermans the stage is way at the back of the room, there is no escape. There was a moment last Friday after our encore, when the crowd was shouting for one more number, and we were leaving the stage, and I realised that we have to make our way through the crowd. There’s no slipping off.  I thought then this would be so easy to turn ugly and for the mob to start demanding we play more. All it would require is a bit of a ringleader, and I understand about this because I am a bit of a trouble maker and ringleader myself.  I've lost count of the riots that I've started.  I could easily see myself starting a chant, “Don’t Let them Go, On with the show”, and next thing you know, we would be taking the band hostage, killing a saxaphone player as a show of strength, and compelling them to play another set, or worse, lots of dodgy covers requests. Much as I sort of like Bannermans, I don’t like the lack of escape route from the stage.

We played at Rockers in Glasgow for the first time, two days later. It was a fundraiser for an anti fascist organisation. We played with four punk bands who were all pretty good. Two hundred folk for a rainy Sunday night in Glasgow is no bad, and of course yet another benefit gig for such a worthy cause means we must have karma to burn, surely. We have raised so much money for Indian Orphans, Sick kids, Mexican Indians, cancer hospices, that its about time we started raising money for devil worshiping cannibals or something; just to redress the cosmic balance. Good to see Gordon and Lindsay from The Meanies and also Claire and Kenny from Esperanza.  This gig was also the first outing of the Bombskare battle bus since its release from the van hospital (new gearbox and crankshaft seal), and it passed its maiden voyage with flying colours. All we need is a stereo. Next trip for it is Aberdeen next week. We also met Chris Blyth in Glasgow. Fans of Ancient History will be interested to learn that Chris Blyth was the other original guitarist for Bombskare, along with Chicken, in the earliest days of Bombskare, around 1998/99. Great guitarist and a good friend of Cammy, Colin and mine. He has been living on a place called Magnetic Island off the coast of Australia for the last eight years. He just happened to be in Glasgow and noticed we were playing. Mental.

Breaking news just in! April will see a temporary return of our lost son Vincent Van Bonar on the kit, when we play the Cathouse in GlasVegas. He’s very excited about it.  He'll be putting some meaning back into his pathetic existence.

Studio update! All the guitars are finished for our album and they are sounding sweet if I do say so myself. Well, nearly all. I have a couple of small bits to fix and then its back to the keyboards next week. Once they are done then it’s the rest of the horns which should only take a day. And once they are completed its just the vocals. And once that’s done its just the mixing, the mastering, the remixing and the printing and pressing. Hang on. That’s just quite a bit of work to do still. We’ll probably chuck a preview up on the websites before all that.  Patience my lovelies.