Dirty weekend

We spent the weekend together, for the first time since February. New children, poorly children, broken stuff, and busy lives kept us occupied in the interim.

It wasn’t dirty, not really, but it was wet. We tried to barbecue on Saturday night, and ended up leaving a defiant John out on the grass with the charcoal, while we sheltered in the kitchen and tried to persuade him to let us finish the food off in the oven. He wouldn’t.

Anyway, we spent two productive afternoons in dimly lit, badly soundproofed rooms for your eventual pleasure and/or disappointment. We managed to fit in a hospital visit and a round trip in the car to pick up gear that we forgot, too. We nearly went to see Tera Melos too, but I made them Clampers stay in and try to figure out some plans for October instead. That part wasn’t entirely successful.

On the plus side, it turns out we have quite a few things that are in fair shape for the next LP. The plan will be to figure out a couple of the subtler details without drums [not that Huw isn’t subtle, you understand] in July, get together for another weekend in September, play a few gigs in October and then record them late 2011/early 2013.

We don’t have an LP title yet, but we have working titles for most of the things that are likely to end up on it: Let’s get fired; Latch; Things are sticky; This is how I cut my own throat; Magpie; Tethered not caged; Bow down; Dirty names; The horse you rode in on; Simple and easy. I think all of them except ‘Dirty names’ have been played out live once, either at the Grubbs gig, the Farina/Brokaw one, or the Bellini show. So [I say this mainly for my own benefit] it seems we are making progress, even if sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.

As a whole, the songs sound quite different to those on ‘Against entitlement.’ It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.

One last thing that everyone should do: see if you can spot our good friend George inventing the word ‘pronunciate’ in the latest edition of Damnably Radio. Once you’ve heard it, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it. Go ahead: pronunciate it right now.

See?