Ooooh look at this lovely poster for a festival we’re doing in London in February. Another Winter of Discontent is held at The Dome in Tufnell Park, North London and it’s a cracking little punk festival. I’m chuffed as hell to be playing it again. Last year was such a pleasure.
Right now I feel like I’ve got to thank Steve for giving us his support. I’ve seen a few bands complaining on his page that the same bands are playing two years in a row and alluding to a clique. We are one of those bands playing again this year and in fact it’s our third AWOD in a row, as we also did the northern leg. Now let me explain our position. In all honesty I don’t know Steve, We’ve met twice and kept in touch online. We asked to play his inaugural AWOD North event in August 2015, and he kindly agreed to let us play the Sunday Afternoon, he didn’t know much about us and we we’re happy to have a ride out to Derby. The bill that day was great. We already knew about Los Fastidios, Oi Polloi, and Eddie Tenpole Tudor, and the rest of the bill was made up of bands much like ourselves. We we’re one of the first bands on that day, it was fairly quiet, and it felt like only a handful of people in the room plus the previous band The Featherz was watching us. Other bands could have thrown their toys out of the pram. Not us. We’re made of much tougher stuff. In fact we thrive off smaller crowds. Besides The Featherz who had just left the stage had been thoroughly entertaining.
We went onstage and did our thing with as much energy and passion as we normally would do, and to be honest all of us in the band felt like we we’re poor, I remember saying to Dempsey “Fuck it, let’s just write that one off, it’s Sunday no one gives a fuck about us here, let’s get pissed”. We ended up getting drunk, dancing to Los Fastidios and Oi Polloi, and being the last guys in the building. The daft thing is I fancied an early night as I was meant to be going in the studio the next morning to start work on my debut solo album. All the way back to Leeds I was threatening to be sick out of the car window whilst texting Janice Long on Radio 2, she read out some of the messages. We cheered each one. The next morning I headed into the studio and set about my album and told Grant my long time producer that I thought we were rubbish at the AWOD North gig. Then this happened!
I screen shot the message as you can see and sent it out to the band, responses of “What the fuck?, we were rubbish, great review though” start hurling back in my direction. Steve also gets in touch and offers us a slot at the main AWOD Fest in London for the following February. Yes, of course was my response.
February 2016 arrives, Me , Dempsey, and our girlfriends arrive in London. It was the night before the show and we hit a few bars in Camden, and then Big Red on Holloway Road, I had forgot but I had taken Dempsey and Emma in there before, I also reminded myself that I had spent New Years Eve there a few years earlier with my ex wife. We play some table football and leave for our hotels. I walk out of Big Red onto Holloway Road and I fall on my arse in front of oncoming traffic … but I wasn’t drunk, was it my shoes? Who knows. Further down the road I fall down again. Like a sniper had shot me. Lila starts heckling me asking if I’m drunk or just an idiot? Dempsey defends me to a degree by agreeing that I’m not drunk therefore I must be an idiot. Me and Lila we’re staying in the EasyHotel on Old Street, it was awful, no windows, and the air con was broken and stuck on the hot hot hot setting, I ended up sleeping on the bathroom floor to absorb some cold. Lila somehow slept in the bed. The next day we go for some drinks in Kentish Town and wait for Joel and Will to arrive. Will tells me a funny story about how some guy wouldn’t go buy his girlfriend a coffee on the train. So Will being Will was going to buy a drink anyway offers to buy her a coffee and causes an argument between the couple. The girl prodding her boyfriend with comments like “That’s what a real, kind gentleman does”. Will is a quiet man but at times he can cause the universe the shift with a simple comment or a simple guitar riff.
Dempsey joins us a little later he had been shopping. We head to The Dome, this place is huge. The gig is in full swing, our friends Autopsy Boys also from Leeds are already on stage and we’re being shown to the dressing room. I’m hungover and feel rotten after a shite nights sleep. And as is often the case with me I was losing my voice. I notice a bottle of honey backstage, Fuck drugs, this is my shit … GIVE ME THAT HONEY!!! I neck a bit of it … neat. This stuff is too good to mix. I do another shot before I go on stage and I neck some rum.
I was impressed with the stage and the room. Except that stage is REALLY high. I like to jump off stages. This gig could hurt. There’s a stage manager and he reminds us that we’ve got 40 minutes. I tell him not to worry. We go on and we’re on fire, and unlike the Sunday afternoon in Derby, the Sunday afternoon in London was very well attended and the crowd seem to be really into us. We give everything we’ve got. Unexpectedly I fall over twice onstage, I’m now starting to worry if there is something wrong with me. We finish on a cover of Little Richard/Slade’s ‘Get Down and Get With It’. The stage manager greets us as we walk offstage “How was that for time?” I ask. “Bang on time mate, can’t believe it”, “That’s how we operate” I grab my rum and walk off like some diva, some lady from Belfast asks me for a set list and compliments me on my handwriting. After the gig Steve greets us and explains that he would’ve liked to have given us a later slot, he offers us a slot for 2017 and we bite his hand off. After the gig we take my very first uber taxi ride to Kings Cross and we have some beers and burritos before heading back to Leeds. Dempsey heads down to Brixton to watch Austin Lucas.
The next day I am in the studio again. I was absolutely exhausted from the gig. Previously I had been working on a song called ‘Burned’ with Barbara Pugliese from Barbarella’s Bang Bang. My voice was shot. I could barely talk. I sounded like Tom Waits. Lila had recently got me into him, she was a big fan, maybe I could give a little nod to Tom Waits for her. Will was meant to be recording some additional guitars and then the album was complete. I rush in to the studio. Grant wants to chat. I felt rude. “Grant, set a mic up and load up burned, I got an idea”. I go into the vocal booth and re-record my vocal. I ask for Will and Grant’s verdict “That’s the one, you sound like Tom Waits” I was pleased. Now I could rest. Whilst Will is recording I receive this message and yet again it’s another sterling review. I sent it out to the band and we’re all pleased.
As you can see AWOD is something that’s important to me and this year’s AWOD festival is something I’m personally looking forward to. We’ve got a Saturday slot, the line up is amazing, and I don’t have to be in the studio the next day. Steve and the guys have made us all feel so welcome, and shown us such warmth. We want to give them the best performance yet. We want to up our game even more, and we don’t think they have seen our best performance. The Yalla Yallas are fans of Los Fastiodios, Brassick, Hard Skin, Bolshy.
Get your tickets now from http://www.wegottickets.com/f/9803
