Always the bridesmaid

Well, we didn't get through. I think we came second, which means that is two years running we have came second in the first heat. Anyway, it was a good night and I felt our set was pretty solid (although there was a tiny hiccup with the keyboard during I am a Camera). This is what Dan of Joyous thought:

Their sound is.. like really hard to describe which is a good thing, sound abit like wire/crossed with elements of young knives but abit more like sonic youth but more like pop songs with shout along/sing-along what ever you want to call it. Just go watch them and you will see what i mean.

We had a decent turn out, including the Wednesday night cinema club, Dan from Is This Paris? (with trusty Jack), Dan and Dan from Joyous, Thom from Your Biggest Fanclub (who doesn't like Calories), DJ Dave and Ali, and my mom and dad. Bonza. My mom was particularly verbal about us not winning, which amused Lucy. Dan and Jack also helped us take some photos as I'm bored with our myspace photo. I'll be posting some of the results over the weekend. Thanks boys!

Before I forget I wanted to mention the pizza I ate before we played. It was called Pepperoni Pefection. Robert had a Veggie Burner. They were 2 for the price of 1 and were a whole 9". So, we got 18" for a humble £5.99. Now that's the real deal, and probably one of the best instalments in the Decadence in Berlin fast food odyssey. Sadly I can't remember the name of this pizza palace. It's about two doors up from The Little Civic next to the pool hall. Oh yes, and we also soundchecked sans bass (because I left it at home), so Rob played bass on my guitar and I played on the keyboard. This resulted in a surf version of I am a Camera which was rather splendid.

Props to Dan Joyous for this video link... and if you're wondering this wasn't our inspiration:

Next gig is tomorrow night at Eden Nightclub in Oakengates, with Damaged Gods. We'll be on about 9.30 I believe. Also, DiB DJ set FTW.

First gig of the decade

Tonight we are playing our first gig of the new decade at the new Little Civic (now known by the slightly shocking name, The Slade Rooms) in Wolverhampton. It's the first round of this years Battle of the Bands competition. Last year we came second in our heat which was nice - but meant we didn't get through to the second round. We would really like to get through this year, especially after our success in the Shropshire Star Battle of the Bands (where we came second in the whole competition), however with many of these things it will probably come down to how many people come through the door. So tonight, if you are at a loss for what to do pop on down and watch us play our little hearts out, we promise we will raise a smile.

In other news, I (Graham) checked out my Casio last night and was very happy to find it is still in working order after it pretty much died at our last show in Shrewsbury with Calebra just before Christmas. That was a fun gig, as everything that could go wrong did, I kissed a girl on the cheek (of the face, not ass) and the same girl stroked Lucy's hair (on her head, not pubic), we drew songs out of a hat, and we sang all of the verses in the wrong place on nearly every track. Hilarity indeed.

This weekend we are going to be playing the launch of a new alternative club night in Oakengates. We are playing with Damaged Gods (who look a bit nu metal) and there will also be a Decadence in Berlin DJ set sometime around midnight. It all kicks off around 9pm at Eden (once known as Minnesota Fats apparently) and it costs £5 on the door.

I'm currently working on a new track called 'Runners'. I will probably never finish it.

Second best band in Shropshire

Thankyou to everyone who voted for us in the competition, your hard work got us through to the final, where we got to play in front to 150+ people in the Severn Theatre. We had a fantastic evening, which was topped off by us coming second in the competition overall. Not an easy feat, when you consider nearly 50 acts entered.

You can see a little clip of us playing in this video from the Shropshire Stars website:

We also got several mentions in the paper, and you can read a little review of the event over on Shropshirestar.com

Thanks again everyone who voted. Listen to BBC Radio Shropshire on Friday 26th June for a Friday Night Gerbil special on the event which includes a little interview with us as well as some of our tunes hopefully!

Regards, as always,
Graham x

The feeling in the pit of yr belly when the bass kicks in...

Day one of the Decadence in Berlin recording programme. Today we hit the Smash Rooms in Ketley to lay down some tracks which will compose our first demo to entice the lovely promoters out there to give us a gig. And so far so good!

We are fortunate to have Ben Millington of NewBreed fame in the producer's chair, and so far everything has gone smoothly - much due to his help and advice. After an early start we began recording at around 9.30am and by 6pm we had lain down the instrument tracks for 'Atlantic Radio Fire', 'Man-Moth' and 'I Am a Camera'. The most lengthy part of this process was the recording of the guitars, multi-tracking them, and finding the bestest ever sound that made the tracks sound tops. It's weird hearing yr song played through the stereo how you imagined it in yr head, and at the same time sounding totally unlike what it sounded like before. It's almost as if we got someone else in to record our sounds and present them to us. Really pleased with the days progress, fingers crossed by end of Saturday we will have a shiny CD with our tracks on, mixed with vocals, ready for yr aural consumption. I can't wait.

Pictures to follow of some of the studio funsies we had.


PS// We came second in our heat of the Battle of the Bands. Remind me to post the link where you can vote us into the final. Don't let the dream die yet!

A beginning...

Hello, and welcome to the Decadence in Berlin blog. We probably won't write here much because we don't really know what to say. However there is a chance we may.

I've got a new toy, namely a MicroKorg synthesiser which I'm going to start writing new material with. It makes sounds like space and dying robots and is pretty much the most fun you can have with two hands apart from many other things which I won't mention here out of common decency. This will probably replace the ancient Casiotone keyboard that I've been using, although for the recording of 'I Am a Camera' I shall probably stick to the Casio, just because I wrote it on that poor old thing. Anyway, here's a little photo of the glorious noise machine.

Ah yes, recording. It looks like we may be doing that very soon, maybe next week. We hope to record a halfdozen tracks for an EP which we've tentively titled 'Setbacks'. But I'll write more about that in the future. Before then we've got a couple of gigs: tomorrow night (Monday 9th Feb) we are playing at Rasputin's in Wellington as part of the ScallyWags clubnight. We shall be playing with Inertia, the recently reformed PennyFamous, and the reworked Nylon Shark. On Wednesday night (11th) we will be down the road at The Haygate, Wellington, this time with Ricochet, Someone Else and Nylon Shark.

Last weeks Battle of the Bands at Wolverhampton went relitively well, with us coming second in our heat, and whilst this means we didn't get through into the second round we can still get into the final at the Civic Hall if we get enough people to get over to http://botb1.wolvescivic.co.uk/ and vote for us (HINT! HINT! HINT!). It doesn't take long and we will love you lots if you do spend a couple of minutes helping us out!

That's all I can think of at the moment, so I shall leave you with a nice photo of us looking rather spiffing after hearing we came second last Wednesday.

Warm emotions,
Graham x