Things

1. The Against Entitlement vinyl has arrived. Little Red Rabbit have a re-adjusted release date of 23rd November. But if you want to mail order it anyway, contact us on eclamp[at]hotmail.com and we’ll let you have the Paypal details to get it direct from us.

2. There’s a good quality podcast of our strange unplanned-drumless London show here. The first set is Former Utopia, the second is Lazarus Clamp.

3. We’re at Brixton Windmill on Sunday 25th October.

4. There’s a rather odd but positive review of Against Entitlement here.

The Station

‘Unsatisfying’ is probably the best way to describe this one, even though it was nice to do something in Birmingham, and for the Lunar Society, too. The gig was transferred from the Hare and Hounds to The Station some months ago because of a double-booking with John Cooper Clarke [which gave me a weird sense of deja vu – I’m sure the same thing happened with JCC in Leicester once?]. Naturally, the Hare and Hounds was bursting at the seams, as it is every Friday night. And naturally [this is L Clamp, after all], The Station was in less healthy form. Half the beers were off, and one none of those that were on were actually ‘beer,’ unfortunately.

The old PA from the Jug of Ale has been deposited in the Station, and it grumbled and crackled its way through the soundcheck, coaxed along by Justin, winner of the Super Helpful Soundman on the Night award. The tone was set though, by a an overpriced and underperforming pre-gig supper on York Rd. Complaints were made. Things were sent back. Optimism was dispersed.

As opener James Summerfield noted, it was an intimidatingly ‘select’ – i.e. small – and attentive audience. It didn’t seem to throw him off though – I really enjoyed his set, especially the untitled new song [despite his advance disclaimer that it wouldn’t work]. How about ‘Not in a Biblical Sense’ for a title, James? [It was a too good joke to only use once].

Chase Mist took the middle slot. They belong to a different universe to us really, and with a bigger audience that wouldn’t have mattered much – electic line-ups can work well, when there’s a broad shore for the waves to break upon, so to speak. But we were navigating by different stars, and it must have felt like as a difficult a gig for them as it did for us.

I couldn’t figure out what to play, or what order to play it in, and during our first few songs I got lost somewhere between trying to second guess the sound [which was ok out front, I think, but very muddy on stage] and anticipate the audience [always an error]. John was almost certainly right to suggest that we should just play whatever we felt like playing – my own inclination was to kick off with Liar or Your Song, and blow some of the jangling nerves away. But we didn’t – we started slow and quiet as we had at the other gigs this week, and even though it helped Justin to recover his levels, it was the wrong call, I think.

Night of the steep learning curve
Ricochets
New hat
Hard work
Sniper
Spon
We set out to fail and succeeded
Canon
Stone beats this

I didn’t hit any kind of stride until ‘Fail,’ really, but I did enjoy playing the last three. It can’t have been as awkward as it felt; afterwards, Alan Bearos enthusiastically described our performance as like ‘an American civil war pre-folk version of Uresei Yatsura,’ which neither I nor Helen could make any sense of … but it sounded encouraging!

Luminaire

Huw emailed in, sick. Nobody believed him, and so he sent us some pictures to prove it.

They didn’t look good, as you can see – so we went ahead without him.

After the usual London-related car adventures [overheating in the uncivilised traffic] and the usual subsequent rushed soundcheck, we sat down with coffee and food and tried to work out what we could play without him.

Having ruled out about half the things we had prepared to play, and cast numerous aspersions in poor Huw’s direction, we finally settled on a set. And told ourselves that it wouldn’t work, but it wouldn’t matter, because we’d swapped with Construction & Destruction to go on earlier, and so no one would see us.

John, Andrew and I sat in the back room while George got ready to play, and tried to work out how to cover up all the bits that Huw usually fixes. Tom watched us and grinned, exactly like a man who’s technical frailties are not about to be exposed by the absence of a more talented colleague. Which of course they weren’t: violin is violin, with or without drums.

George kicked things off and was great. The place filled up as he played. It began to look like it would probably matter a bit after all.

We eventually worked through this:

Steep learning curve
Ricochets
New hat
Hard work
Set out to fail
Spon
Etymologist’s lament
Your song

I wasn’t convinced that Spon stood up, but the rest seemed to work well – even if the songs we ended up with didn’t really have the dynamic range that the lovely sound in the Luminaire merited. It got hotter, and more enjoyable, as we went along. Your Song definitely shouldn’t have worked. It sort of did. Fancy that.

After that, Construction and Destruction were finally done justice, with their proper equipment, and a good soundman. Julie, Dan and Fred, were great, again. It was George’s birthday, and a very enjoyable night. I drove home, but fell asleep at Oxford Services.

Right. Bring on the folk dimension. Brumdignab next.

Islington Mill

We kicked off our little jaunt quite respectably at Islington Mill, despite the fact that no one could find it. After an afternoon practicing in a boomy and rather desolate ex-warehouse, we turned up to the venue to discover that it was erm … not that different to where we’d been practicing. It did have some very friendly and helpful people in it, and a very, very tired Former Utopia, and a few fairy lights.

After a couple of hours, a lot of heel kicking [the other bands were lost in traffic] and some foul chips [John really enjoyed these, in a way which was completely disproportionate to their edibility, and which I guess was an indicator of how hungry we were by then], everybody else turned up.

We played:
Night of the steep learning curve
New hat
Hard work of simple things
Etymologist’s lament
Black plumes for Hot Peas
Canon
Stone beats this

‘New hat’ and ‘Canon’ felt a little sticky, but the others seemed to come out right. Tom played a blinder on ‘Hard work’ and the song soared off at the end in a way that I don’t think it ever really has before. Probably never will again, now!

Julie, Fred and Dan were very, very good. Some things were [very satisfyingly] predictable – quiet and pretty renditions of the quiet and pretty songs from the last few LPs, sweet as you like. Others were more surprising – big blasts of bluesy guitar, tumbling drums. And then some lovely songs with Fred and Dan singing too. The whole thing was also very relaxed and funny [attendance was on the ‘light’ side].

Anyone toying with idea of picking up a ticket for the Luminaire show is strongly encouraged to do so …

Autumn gigs, 2009

Sunday 27th September – Islington Mill, Manchester, for Damnably, with Julie Doiron, and Construction and Destruction, and Former Utopia.

Wednesday 30th September – Luminaire, London, for Damnably, with Julie Doiron, and Construction and Destruction, and Former Utopia.

Friday 2nd October – The Station, Kings Heath, Birmingham, for the Moseley Lunar Society.

Sunday 25th October – The Windmill, Brixton, London, for Stubbaboon.

Saturday 31st October – Leeds – tbc.

Against entitlement, 19th October 2009

Against Entitlement will be released on 19th October, on Little Red Rabbit records (LRR014). It will be distributed by Forte. It will come as an LP, on 180g vinyl, and will include a free CD version of the album. Or, if you prefer, it comes as a CD, and will include a free 180g vinyl record, and some extra bits of paper and artwork. Either way, the shop price will be £12.

It will also be available as a download.

A limted number of CD-only copies will be available directly from us, for people who don’t want the lovely vinyl, and the extra bits of paper, and the lovely sleeve, not even for free, thank you [what’s wrong with you?].

There are 9 songs on the record:

Stone beats this
Etymologist’s lament
Spon
Hard work of simple things
Been black-eyed
Canon
Night of the steep learning curve
Puppies
I am the police

We are playing some gigs too – see subsequent postings.

New songs, pts IV & V

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Brighton for the week, and so I drove up to John’s one evening and we worked on these for a couple of hours:

The horse you rode in on
Things are sticky

Then yesterday, four of us (everyone except Tom who was pre-booked) met in Birmingham, and spent the afternoon working on:

Things are sticky
Bow down

These last two aren’t far off being playable, once we have Tom’s parts and a few details sorted out.

Against entitlement

Meanwhile, the preparation for the release of Against Entitlement is almost complete. The 9 songs are currently being mastered at Echolab. Once we have those back, we’re ready to roll.

This new record will be released on Little Red Rabbit records (cat. no. LRR014) in October. It will come on 180g vinyl, with a free CD. It should be available in time for the gigs we’re going to be playing this autumn.

New songs, pt III

John, Tom and myself met up in Birmingham this weekend just gone, where we ate too many doughnut-muffin hybrids [douffins? muffnuts?], and worked on some new songs:

This is how I cut my own throat
Latch
Simple and easy
Tethered not caged
Apple and pear

Let the marathon CDr burning commence …

More former than latter

We mostly got away with that – although we set a rather frisky pace, which was somewhat at odds with the mood of the evening. Picture a post-rock, Shoreditch-close version of Jazz Club. Nice.

Indicative exchange of the evening:
John enters the little in-house record-shop; CDs and records are placed on every available surface – the floor, shelves, electricity meter and consumer unit. John browses them for a while, and then, puzzled:
John [to man in record shop]: I don’t recognise any of these records. Not one. I have three thousand records at home. OK, I don’t like all of them, but how is this possible? Are all the records in this shop just obscure experimental noise or something?
Man: Yes.

Anyway, to the gig. I was late, and stressed by the lateness, and by the overheating of the vehicle which got me there. I barely coped with a disastrous soundcheck and broken guitar. After a drink and a drop in heartrate, I was able to problem-solve a bit more clearly: we swapped guitars and amps around for the gig, and thanks to a stand-up soundman, it sounded great.

George was on fine form for his Former Utopia set, and he also saved my ass by lending me his guitar after mine decided to be broken. I covered the door for him while he played, much to the consternation of the kid who appeared to be running the place. I was a little laissez faire for his liking I think.

I started off on my own. I played Smoke, and Let’s Get Fired, and Tethered Not Caged (two new songs) on my own. Then Andrew and John joined in; we began with Andrew on banjo for Hard Work of Simple Things and New Hat, then on guitar for Ricochets, Steep Learning Curve, Sniper (which didn’t really work without drums), Thieves and Curses (which worked better than I expected, but which, unfortunately, I sang with all the grace of a lonely tomcat), and then Spon (which sped up rather hilariously).

Grubbs was in ”Optimist Notes the Dusk’ mode, more than, say, Wingdale Community Singers or Gastr Del Sol mode. This seemed to be what most people had come for (he had an incredibly attentive audience). I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for that, really, after our set: I daydreamed my way through a lot of the spacier bits. Plus it worries me a bit whenever I discover I am listening to a ‘piece’ rather than a ‘song.’ I feel like I’ve ventured into grown-up, metropolitan territory where I don’t belong, a bit like when I find myself in meetings with People Who Wear Suits at work.

But there was a lively version of Two Shades of Green, and a memorable new song [sorry, new piece] about a hermitage in the clouds which [when it finally got going …] was very pretty indeed. And there was a magical moment of transition from piano to guitar which carried over a rather claustrophobic musical figure and chiming pattern first set up on the piano, and then somehow transformed it into something very beautiful and transcendent.