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- Jan 19, 12
Just a quick thought that’s nonetheless too long for Twitter:
That thing when you’re working on a song, and you’ve had it in your head for a few days/weeks/months when suddenly you have a moment of doubt and can’t for the life of you work out whether it has hooked itself into your brain because a) you’ve written something properly good or b) you’ve ripped off something better.
That’s annoying that is.
Especially when 10 years later you suddenly realise that first “good” song you wrote as a teenager is essentially the chorus from Idlewild’s “Idea Track”.
- Jan 04, 12
Ok, so it’s 4th January but here goes:
1. Get married. This should be pretty easy to fulfill, what with being engaged and the wedding booked and all, so nice to get something easily achievable.
2. Finish more songs. Previous years have probably had “write more songs” as a resolution, but I realised recently that I write loads of stuff that I either forget or just get bored of before it’s even finished - that might just be some sort of internal quality control thing, or it might be laziness. Either way, 2012 will be a “write first, ask questions later” kind of year.
3. Learn to use my loop pedals properly. And by “properly”, I really mean “to make horrible dirty noise” and not “to start sounding like every other fucker who uses one of these potentially magical, but often in practice boring, contraptions”. I have two now, one for guitar and one for voice. I may end up using the voice one just to make silly noises though…
4. Record stuff. See #2 really.
5. Exercise. I generally don’t do too badly on this front, but more exercise wouldn’t hurt. Actually it would hurt, it’s exercise, but once I get used to it things will be amazing. This is in no way an indication that I care about the Olympics.
- Dec 31, 11
It’s been a fun, busy, tiring, but let me re-emphasise this: fun year. I released my first full-length album (have you not got it yet? Head to Amazon or email me), played 65 gigs in 4 different countries, did some DIY merch making and somehow found time to work a full time job, get engaged, and occasionally even sleep.
Here’s my highlights in the form of a The Queen-style end-of-year honours list.
Ben Marwood - awarded the OBE (Officer of the Barry Empire) for services to touring fun, getting my album released via his Broken Tail Records, and generally being a great pal.
Kev at Edit Radio - another OBE, again for tour-buddy antics.
Jack at Alcopop - the CBE for releasing a bunch of ace music, and almost single-handedly keeping my alter-ego Sew Fucking What busy this year.
Everyone at 2000 Trees Festival gets a massive high-five and an OT Knighthood for putting on another awesome weekend of music, even if I did live up to my album title and utterly destroy myself on Friday night, leading to a fairly poor drinking effort the next day. Here’s to 2kTrees 2012.
The year would have also been far less rocking without James Addis, Neil Morris, Gaz Brookfield, Alex Archer, Tim Bailey, Sam Betts, Mark McCabe, Chris T-T, Sid Siddle, Craig Slaney, The Mother’s Ruin, Lam Stock, whisky, real ale, the letter X, the colour orange, and the number 42.
Finally a huge thanks has to go to @mrsthief for putting up with my regular absenteeism/sleepiness/general abilityto fill our house (and her car) with junk…and somehow still agreeing to be my wife: you rock.
Have a great 2012.
- Oct 18, 11My review of Ben Marwood @ the Louisiana, Bristol 7th October 2011:
On my old music blog. Might be worth transferring it to a tumblr…
- Oct 04, 11
What a weekend, what a long weekend…WHAT AN AWESOME WEEKEND:
In short -
Drove to Harrow, ate 2 slices of pizza, played songs, celebrated my 10 year buddy-versary with my pal Nicky, got my face melted by Hold Your Horse Is, did the Safety Dance (and one less dignified), stumbled home, ate hummus, slept like a sardine, woke up, went to Nandos with the Fool’s Paradise crew (extra hot + XO sauce ftmfw), drove to Aldershot, drank beer, played songs in the lounge, stairway, shower, bedroom, kitchen, and garden, partied, got trapped in the fridge (not really) slept, woke up, had pancakes (AWESOME), drove…drove…drove…picked Ben Marwood up…drove…drove…drove…drove…failed to get Percy Pigs…drove…drove…drove…drove…drove…drove, arrived in Manchester, had the most pathetic burger ever, had the most awesome gig ever (premature human pyramid, slightly wobbly human pyramid, singing, clapping, Ben Marwood kicking ass), drank beer, danced to pop-punk, got Ben Marwood , slept on the floor, put my socks in the bin, ate bacon, drove to Kidderminster, saw some fire engines, rocked in the afternoon, drove home and went to wonderful sleep.
In longer - we’ll do longer later, I’ve wine to drink.
- Sep 08, 11
It’s been a while since I sold the last of my Lost-inspired (ok, ripped off) t-shirts, and it’s time for a follow up.
Coming soon to a torso near you:
In keeping with the DIY motif from my recent debut album, I’ll be screenprinting them all with my own bare hands (ably assisted by the lovely @mrsthief).
So here’s the plan: they’ll be £8 at gigs, in standard or lady fit, in white or light blue. But, if you pre-order one to collect at one of the gigs/have posted then they’ll be just £7 and you can choose from the following colours:
Red
Light Blue
Yellow
Orange (not lady-fit)
Green
White
These will be on Gildan Heavy 160gsm shirts, sizes S/M/L/XL/XXL.
If you can’t afford to pay right now, then a quick email/tweet with “hey OT, bring a red one in large to Birmingham/York/etc and I’ll pay you there ok?” will be fine too.
Pre-order/reserving runs from now until lunchtime on Monday 12th September as I’ll have to order the blank shirts by then in time to get them sorted by touring times.
Deal?
Head to http://oxygenthief.bigcartel.com/product/t-shirt to pre-order, email oxygenthiefmusic@gmail.com or tweet @oxygenthiefYEAH to reserve.
OT
- Aug 18, 11
…no silly, not the Sunday morning cookery and chat show that @mrsthief and I used to spend far too much time watching (but haven’t bothered with since I had an argument with Tim Lovejoy on Twitter about his insane opinion that musicians should just do it for the love and not expect to ever get paid*), but the clever subtitle of a brace of tour dates that Ben Marwood & I are doing over the coming months named after the fact that:
a) due to dayjob time demands we’re only able to gig on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays
and
b) that the entire thing is being sponsored by Durex**
Enough nonsense, here are the dates that I’m involved with:
rOCkTOBER
1 Manchester The Garrett
2 Kidderminster The Swan (Matinée)
7 Bristol The Louisiana
8 Birmingham Bright House
9 House Shows Oxford and Swindon
mOVEMBER11 Bath The Greenpark Tavern
12 Leicester The Crumblin’ Cookie
13 Cheltenham Slak
19 Reading Rising Sun Arts Centre
24 Swindon The Vic
DECEMBER
2 House Show Kettering
3 York City Screen Basement Bar
4 House Shows Leeds and HuddersfieldI also have a few dates dotted around that Ben can’t make/isn’t allowed to play due to ongoing restraining orders*** but you can/should all come to:
AUGUST
26 Bristol The Louisiana (supporting Planes - a Placebo side project)
SEPTEMBER
24 CHELTENHAM Frogfest @ The Frog & Fiddle
29 LONDON Fools Paradise @ Trinity, Harrow w/Hold Your Horse IsCd album is still available at:
and downloads via:
Cheers
OT
———————————————————————
*him blindly not seeing the logic in my counter argument that “ok, footballers enjoy their job so maybe they shouldn’t be paid either”. Tool.
**ok, maybe not - but if they want to pay for all our petrol and food in exchange for us extolling the virtues of safe-shenanigans then that’s fine by me at least.
***as if ;)
- Jul 22, 11
I did it again - in a classic case of not listening to my own advice, I broke my face with booze at 2000 Trees. It was fun though, as always.
I feared that I might have also broken my effects pedals with booze when a tentatively stamped foot on the fairly flimsy Greenhouse stage caused an unopened can of beer to fall onto my pedalboard and explode everywhere a few songs into my set…somehow despite half a can going into my extension cable, I managed to avoid electrocution and carried on with the set sans-fx.
Having been too scared to test them since incase a) they explode or b) they just don’t work, either case being a bit of an expensive scenario, it turns out they’re actually completely fine. Win.
Was also a bit worried that my guitar might be broken as well having spent about an hour playing it in the pissing down rain on Friday night, but that seems fine too (so far).
All of which bodes well for the next couple of gigs I’m playing : Saturday 23rd July at The Louisiana, Bristol, supporting the rather brilliant †Hymns† and Shoes And Socks Off. I’ve got a cheaplist sorted for this here.
Then it’s Saturday 30th July, also at The Louisiana, as part of the Harbour Festival. Was pretty fun last year, so if you’re about pop in and say hi.
After that it’s a month off from gigging to have a go at writing some new stuff, then it’s back on the road from the end of September. Hurrah!
OT
—————————————————
linkage:
www.twitter.com/oxygenthiefyeah
www.facebook.com/oxygenthief666
Buy my album from an awesome shop: http://www.banquetrecords.com/btr9
Buy my album from the online arm of a dying megachain: http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=12;1;315;-1;208&sku=142721
Buy my album from Mr Ian Apple: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/modesty-is-dead/id429133101?i=429133104
- Jul 10, 11
…this is a message for people of the future, a public service announcement for people who, like @mrsthief and I, may find themselves tuning in to a repeat of 90’s charity challenge fest You Bet!, missing the start of the show to find someone called “Meryl Streep” appearing as a guest. Someone who looks nothing like Meryl Streep. And who is English. But who everyone keeps calling “Meryl Streep”.
Thinking this was a bit odd, we went to Wikipedia for clarification - only to find the listing for that episode as containing “Meryl Streep (Susan Elvy)” amongst the guests. A quick Google* for “Susan Elvy” brought up nothing but that article, and only unrelated sites for people with similar names.
Now, at this point our brains EXPLODED: the internet didn’t have the answer to something. Surely that’s got to be a rarer thing than a Googlewhack these days - I mean, the internet knows what colour pants I’m wearing** so how can it not know who a person on the television is?
30 minutes or so of Googling, Tweeting, phoning our parents, and generally doubting the very fabric of reality, and Matthew Kelly wraps up by thanking the panelists including “Meryl Streep………Susan from Tunbridge Wells!”. The mystery thickened, and it seemed as if we would never know the answer; we would be wheeled off to padded cells where we would spend the rest of our days rocking back and forth gibbering “Meryl Streep…Susan Elvy…MERYL…SUSAN…THE INTERNET DIDN’T KNOW” until our next dose of sedation.
Then, from out of nowhere came a possible route to salvation: we have access to the glorious option of watching the start of the show on Challenge+1.
We flicked through the channels and waited with baited breath to see if all would be explained, or whether the madness would continue……………….and it kind of did both; camp acquittee Matthew Kelly telling some rambling story about booking Meryl Streep for the show, but her getting all diva-esque and not turning up so instead he chose a random woman from the audience to stand in for her.
Really? Really? What on earth kind of world does that even begin to make sense? I know it was the early 90s, and the You Bet “celebrity” panel probably invented the concept of “D List” but that’s just plain mental right?
So, this blog post is for fellow confused souls in the hope that if they Google* “Susan Elvy” that they can find clarification a little quicker and with less existential angst than we had to suffer; she was just some random from the audience that they pretended was Meryl Streep. It was all just pretend.
I’m off for a pint, possibly of whisky.
OT
*other search engines are available, but nowhere near as good
**or at least it does now: grey - Jun 30, 11
…and that means it’s nearly time for 2000 Trees : ACE.
More of that in a minute - just a quick thank you first to everyone who came to one of the May tour dates, it was a lot of fun. My tour diary maintenance is pretty atrocious at the moment - mainly because typing about how much fun it was being out on the road just throws into contrast the monotony of the 9-5 routine - but I’ll get there eventually I’m sure!
————-Album———————-
Another huge “thank you” wave goes to everyone who has bought the album so far - if you haven’t then now’s as good a time as any right?
Cd (with full lyric book & picture of my shouting face on the inside cover):
Amazon.co.uk (£7.57): http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004UR2AAC/
Banquet Records (£9.99): http://www.banquetrecords.com/btr9
Download:
Play.com (£5.99) : http://goo.gl/wy4Kc
iTunes (£7.99): http://goo.gl/YlJXI
—————Gigs—————-
There’s just a few gigs coming up, spending some time writing over the next couple of months and then going to hit the road again in September/October/November I think. Nice.
Thursday 30th June (tonight): Academy 2, Bristol (supporting The Hot Rats - feat members of Supergrass). £7 cheaplist.
15th July: 2000 Trees Festival, 2.40pm on the Greenhouse Stage. This is my 200th gig, so bring booze/party hats/your fun heads: we’re going to have ourselves a time.
23rd July: The Croft, Bristol. w/Hymns, Shoes And Socks Off
30th July: The Louisiana stage, Bristol Harbour Festival.
—————————————
That’s about it for now I think, other than that we should all keep our fingers crossed that Myspace will get sorted out now that it’s out of the hands of News Corp and will become a decent tool for musicians again. I have a dream……..Check out www.oxygenthief.bandcamp.com for a free download of one of the album tracks, and www.oxygenthiefmusic.com for general stuff.
Catch you soon
OT - Jun 09, 11Oxygen Thief album = 1 month old today! #teamDIY:
Hey peeps, my album turns 1 month old today so have put it up to stream online to celebrate:
http://soundcloud.com/oxygenthief/sets/teamdiy
It’s only going to be up there in full for today, so if… - Jun 09, 11
Hey peeps, my album turns 1 month old today so have put it up to stream online to celebrate:
http://soundcloud.com/oxygenthief/sets/teamdiy
It’s only going to be up there in full for today, so if you could pass the link around Facebook/Twitter/etc then that’d be awesome.
I’ve a couple more favours to ask if that’s ok? I’m not too fond of the concept of “street teams” and all that, but the odd call to arms every now and then is alright isn’t it?
If so, I might get a few #teamDIY badges made & send them out with stickers to say thanks for helping out. Then we’ll work out some sort of secret handshake and go on adventures and solve crimes and drink lashings of ginger beer……..
————————-
Favour #2 - free download single Terry Nutkins Salute has been played a couple of times by Tom Robinson on 6music, which is awesome but…it’d be nice to get a bit more airplay wouldn’t it?
If you have a minute to email your favourite alternative music dj (Huw Stephens, Steve Lamacq, Zane Lowe, the Rock Show/Punk Show, Bruce Dickenson, XFM, etc) and point them in my direction then that’d be a huge help.
If you’ve not already downloaded it, then head to http://www.oxygenthief.bandcamp.com for a slice of noise.
————————
Favour #3 - Sites like Amazon, iTunes, Banquet Records etc all have “customer reviews” sections where you can rate things and leave comments - entries for the album are looking a bit sparse at the moment…so if you’ve already got it and would be up for popping your opinion down then go ahead:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004UR2AAC
Banquet: http://www.banquetrecords.com/btr9
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/modesty-is-dead/id429133101?i=429133104
If you haven’t already got it, then grab it from one of those links :)
———————-
Think that’s about it for now - thanks to everyone who came out to gigs on the tour, it was a fun month. Things are a little on the quiet side gig-wise for a while, going to start working on some new stuff for a bit, but my 200th ever gig will coincide with my set at 2000 Trees Festival so I’m looking forward to that, and I’ll be opening for the rock-tastic Hymns in Bristol on Saturday 23rd July
Cheers
Barry OT
———————
Upcoming gigs:
Thursday 16th June - The Arts Centre, Winterbourne
Friday 15th July - 2000 Trees Festival (200th gig - bring beers)
Saturday 23rd July - The Croft, Bristol (w/Hymns)
Like on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/oxygenthief666 - Jun 07, 11
Just a quick jaunt this one, v.London-centric with a gig at The Cricketers in Kingston, and one for a friend’s brother’s 18th birthday party. Let’s forget the fact that I went to the dayjob for a bit inbetween and call this:
Day 9: Kingston
Another thoroughly hardcore Radio 4 soundtracked journey, with a justifiable sense of déjà-vu from last Friday’s identical jaunt. Arriving at The Cricketer’s to meet Del and Zoe I immediately have suggestions of getting a curry implanted into my not-actually-that-hungry brain…..yumcurrytimeyum. Erstwhile tour buddy Kev from [edit] Radio arrived to keep me company for this jaunt, then it was rock o’(massive)clock.Gig itself was fun, if a little sparse crowd-wise (about 3 other events happening in K-Town tonight +The Great Escape Festival just down the road in Brighton – excellent timing!) and the venue had some quite serious quirks with its enormous non-running clock, furry carpeted stage, and shonky monitor platforms that barely took my weight…but that I stood (and probably stamped) on anyway. Tonight was my first Luke Leighfield experience, a highlight of which was a fairly lengthy improvised song on the subject of cake – which I’m pretty sure I filmed so will upload soon enough. Hopefully he’ll take on my suggestion of an entirely cake themed concept album; Luke Cakefield, yum.
Afterwards we piled back to Del’s famous shed where I drank a bottle of rosé wine like it was beer (i.e. far too fast), ate crisps, and played Guitar Hero until the early hours of the morning. Watching Del attempt Hotel California on Expert made me realise how insane that game can be sometimes – if you turned the sound off you’d swear he was attempting some ridiculous Dragonforce track, rather than the relatively-easy-to-play-on-an-actual-guitar country-rock classic. It’s for that reason that I refuse to play on a greater difficulty level than “medium”, and not because I suck and am bitter about it, oh no.
Day 10: London
An early-ish start to pop back into Banquet Records and vandalise a few more copies of my album with silver and gold pens – thanks for buying from them, if you did…and if not my album is at: www.banquetrecords.com/btr9 - and then off into East London to drop off some baggage and find a way to kill a few hours. Kev and I decided to spend the day in Shoreditch playing “Spot The Dickhead” – we lost count – and went for a meaty combo feast at the Hoxton Bar & Grill: YUM. Later we strolled around, ending up at the Big Chill Bar just off Brick Lane to meet up with a couple more pals before heading to gigland.Tonight’s gig was part of Josaka head honcho Jim Bowes’ little brother’s 18th birthday party. Now, birthday party gigs can go one of two ways; either they’re relentless blasts of fun packed with people intent on having an awesome time, or they’re soul destroying evenings where you play to a crowd more intent on getting trashed and chatting to their mates than paying any attention whatsoever to the bands onstage. So it was with a little trepidation that I set up in the quirky Jamboree venue in the middle of the Cable Street Studios complex, the slight hangover and lack of sleep creating a bit of a negative mood.
Thankfully I needn’t have worried at all – Josh and his friends were up for it from the moment they arrived, and were an absolutely lovely bunch; singing along, headbanging, dancing, doing absolutely everything you could possibly ask of an audience and making for one of the most fun 30 minutes I have ever spent on a stage. Highlights for me were asking Josh if he was looking forward to his first ever alcoholic drink (as obviously he’d not have had one before the legal drinking age of 18, right?) and changing the words of “Gold” to “Josh” in the last chorus so everyone could shout his name over and over. Fun fun fun fun FUN.
Headliners Six Nation State got, if anything, an even more enthusiastic reaction, and the party was still going strong as I reluctantly ran for what I thought was my last train (it wasn’t – the TFL website lied/I was too drunk to read it properly). An awesome evening, thanks for having me along.
- May 23, 11
Afternoon all - I’m sat in a post-Ireland daze at the moment…had a great few days bussing around the country playing my first gigs on the island.
Will write a proper blog about the weekend soon, but just wanted to post that I’m ecstatic to share that Tom Robinson played Terry Nutkins Salute on BBC 6music on Saturday night/Sunday morning…describing it as “acoustic guitar played with such ferocity that it takes the top of your head off”.
Ace.
Download the song for free at:
http://oxygenthief.bandcamp.com/and buy the album from
Amazon (£6.99)
iTunes (£7.99)
- May 19, 11DIY May tour diary - leg 1: What happened to the weather? It was bakingly hot and beautiful, like all the summers that your parents tell you they experienced every year of their lives at your age* when it’s pissing down…
- May 18, 11
What happened to the weather? It was bakingly hot and beautiful, like all the summers that your parents tell you they experienced every year of their lives at your age* when it’s pissing down through July and August……..and then suddenly I walked out the front door this morning to find I needed a jumper and an umbrella. Bastard.
Such meterological phenomena aside, I’m back from the first week of my tour with…oh, I’m on my own this time aren’t I, so it’s a tour with Spotify Premium, a week’s restful bank holiday boozing already playing havok with my liver, and my album waiting in the wings for its chance to wrestle its way into people’s homes.
This leg of the tour had some interesting clashes with Real Life, a variety of attendence levels, and a serious amount of mileage - sorry carbon footprint.
DAY 1: Birmingham
Started with an activity even more rock & roll than installing a washing machine** - going to my gran’s 83rd birthday lunch. I love my gran, she’s ace.
My Gran, and my sister; see if you can guess which is which.
Some familial catching up, a tiny glass of champers, and far too much food later we’re heading back to Bristol & then I’m Birmingham-bound on the M5 for tonight’s first gig at The Adam & Eve. Arriving far too early, I settle in for the evening as the pub slowly starts to populate itself with punters weary from the prolonged bank holiday festivities, yet still keen to witness this evening’s lineup of acoustic music.
I’ve been to the A&E a few times - once for some cable-tv showcase thing which I never ended up seeing (probably a good thing really) - and they’ve always been a hospitable and fun bunch to play for. I greet a few familiar faces, make a weird piece of modern art broach type thing out of a Pringles can (see below) and get myself ready.
Yours for just £2,999,995, and a tube of Pringles.
Annoyingly the opening 3 acts all over run, leading to a bit of a rush for me to get my full set in before the curfew…but luckily the bar staff urge me to play on, so probably end up going over my set time in the end but wtf. A fun opening night & then back to an old pal’s place for Easter egg, G&T, toffee vodka and sleep.
Day 2: Oxford
Despite having a week off, my bodyclock is still firmly set to “dayjob” mode, so I wake up far too early & set off for Oxford - my first visit in January was a bit of a rushed affair so I was determined to make the most of a day out in this historic city, sitting in posh places scribbling in my awesome Dr Who notebook…and so I do; strolling around the grounds of the Bodleian while groups of Japanese and American tourists do battle to see who can fulfil the greatest quota of national stereotypes, not to be outdone by the outstandingly posh English tour guides; I also get myself some picnic material and sit in the grounds of Christ Church marvelling at just how much like living in a postcard this feels, I mean just look at this:
Nowhere should look this awesome on a photo taken by a fucking telephone…
amazing advances in technology or not.
I also stumbled upon The Oxford Museum, which for a suggested £1 donation (I gave 5 x 20p coins) you could witness such delights as; a map showing where some Roman settlements were found near, but not in, Oxford; some marmalade; and a 15 minute video narrated by Tony Robinson in which culminated in rejoicing in the city’s vibrant music scene “spearheaded by Supergrass and Radiohead”. I’ll type that again, “Supergrass and Radiohead”. The only reason I can think of for their being ordered that way is that the museum is curated by Gaz Coombes’ dad. Supergrass and Radiohead, honestly. And that wasn’t the only tragedy - I scoured the whole museum and didn’t find even one reference to Lewis, or his sidekick Hathaway. Hell, they didn’t even mention the seminal detective series’ little known pilot outing “Morse”. Mental.
Reeling from this shock omission I made my wa y back to Café Tarifa via a quick pint and a phone charge in the Rusty Bicycle wherein I overheard the most overbearing self-important cuntversation of all time between a group of guys that wanted everyone in the pub to know that they were musicians, and how brilliant that made them, and how they knew people who were signed and everything. I honestly wanted to punch my balls off just for the association of having something in common with these pricks - I would have left earlier, but my phone hadn’t charged enough & I wouldn’t be able to get into the venue for another hour so endured it as my blood pressure rose.
Now the venue was lovely and the staff were all uber friendly, but unfortunately it just didn’t quite happen tonight - there was a reasonable crowd for the first act on, but they were more of a “let’s have a chat while some music happens” group of people, so pretty much all got up and went to the other end of the bar as soon as I started playing, leaving me with an audience of about 4. That combined with the fact that I drank one of their enormous bottles of beer before going onstage meant that it was a bit of a self conscious set which I didn’t fully enjoy………still, made a few friends, met up with a couple of old ones, and had a fun day so can’t complain.
AND I GOT GIVEN GIANT BEER:
I <3 my giant beer.
Day 3: Bristol
Another relatively early morning tour-wise, stupid bodyclock, so made it back to Bristol in time to have a spot of lunch with @mrsthief and spend the afternoon generally lazing around, getting to The Mother’s Ruin in plenty of time to soundcheck, pop out for supplies, and greet the twin loveliness of Jim Lockey and Benny J. Hayes.
Both organising and playing a gig can be a bit of a weird experience as you end up sitting on the door instead of watching the other acts properly (though snatched a couple of looks). Couple that with the fact that you’re playing your album in its entirety for the first time ever and there’s the potential for a massive nervebomb funfail. Thankfully lots of people came along, were very generous with the pay-what-you-want arrangement (extra bonus points to Stan The Man for putting an entire tenner in) and my voice coped fine with the utter live unfriendliness of the running order (Terry Nutkins Salute third on the tracklist? Ouch) so I had a lot of fun, chatted a lot between songs, and ended up with a rousing outing for Gold (with my first ever self-centred “when I say X, you reply Y”) and !@*# track There Can Be Only One for good measure.
Day 4: Brighton
With Jodie Live-Music-Scene on board as co-driver we set off down the scenic route to Brighton, arriving in time to spend £6 on a parking meter and explore the Laines a bit - managing to find a whole new row of shops, including what I can only describe as a vintage clothing and bric-a-brac hypermarket that I’m going to visit again sometime after winning the lottery to stock up on the humungous amount of kitsch brilliance contained therin.
Resisting the call of seaside fish & chips, thinking we’d probably find something healthier***, but Jodie being unable to
I’ve only played Brighton twice; the first time on a bill with Oasis wannabees in a Wetherspoons-esque venue playing to disinterested friends of the other bands, the second time in a sweaty room above an awesome rock bar, so was looking forward to my 3rd visit to the area. The venue is more a section of the pub, and it seemed to be a focus point for the unusual; a beer garden crammed with people smoking…but weirdly not seeming to visit the bar. Ever. A small dog (Adam Boucher christened her “Wakima”) stage invading. And most brilliantly, a small ginger girl placing a helium “I’m Sorry” balloon at the merch table…then SCREAMING at her brother when he tried to retrieve it, insisting it was left in its new position.
I mean, people call all sorts of situations surreal (“Oh my god I went to buy some cheese and they’d run out; it was so surreal”) when they actually mean “unusual”, “strange”, or in most cases…”slightly outside their normal parameters of experience” but I feel this was a turn of events worthy of the label for once - just consider the facts:
a) why did this child have the balloon in the first place?
b) why did the child decide to leave it at the merch table?****
c) what possible offence could you commit that would be serious enough to require some kind of action beyond a verbal apology, to which the purchase of an inflatable “I’m Sorry” balloon would be an adequate, and acceptable gesture?
The mind boggles.
Oh yeah, it also had this amended sign next to the Dyson Airblade
I <3 Dyson Airblades, want one in my downstairs loo sooooooo bad.
Still, it was a fun gig and we managed to incorporate the balloon, and the dog, into proceedings pretty well. Honorable mentions to the fantastic Hollywood Assassins for rock & rolling pretty hard, Adam Boucher for road testing his new backing band, and Adam Bennett for making it all happen.
There was only the small matter of having to drive back to Bristol post-gig as I had to attend a new dayjob interview at 9.50am the next morning - luckily Jodie LMS was up to the task and admirably got me home in time for about 5 hours pre-interview sleep. Hardcore or what?
Day 5: Banquet Records Instore. aka “The Day I Did Everything”
Bed at 3am, awake just after 7am, with a not insignificant amount of disturbance from our cat Monty to contend with during the night. Feeling weirdly awake and not at all mentally deranged I went through the usual interview routines, drank an enormous cup of tea, and went off to wow all and sundry. Feeling pretty positive***** I returned home to have a couple of hours kip before heading back on the road for my Banquet Records instore….well, that was the plan - in reality I led down for about 2 minutes, couldn’t get to sleep, so watched Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle and then went to bash 7 shades of shite out of my drums instead. Revitalising.
One intensely rock & roll journey later (listening mainly to Radio 4) I arrive at the majestic Banquet Records, starting point for one hell of a lot of cds/records I’ve bought in the last few years, and get down to some serious browsing. It’s been said many times before, but this place is just brilliant; a well stocked, well informed, well intentioned shop that truly seems concerned with the love of music above all else. After a bracing cup of tea courtesy of JT, I get my gig on - initially feeling a little bit starstruck by the building itself, and feeling a little bit self conscious about playing fully unplugged and shouting directly into the faces of the amassed dozen-strong audience, but I thoroughly enjoy the whole thing and stunned to see so many of the attendees buying copies of the album & asking me to sign them. Buy my album from them now, hell - buy all your music from them in future: www.banquetrecords.com/btr9.
This = Ace.
After a quick catch up with the soon to be Dr Pendrey, I set off for Reading to meet up with Broken Tail Records overlord Ben Marwood and [edit] Radio’s Kev Lawson to celebrate the former’s milestone 30th year of being alive. First stop is at a fellow celebrant’s festival-themed party, where I almost fall straight asleep as the day’s activities catch up with me. But after some cake, inappropriate gaffa tape artwork, and a few pints of life giving water, I’m back in a party mood and it’s off to the After Dark for double Jack Daniels + Red Bulls and a lengthy conversation about the heavy-metal-covers-of-advert-jingles band that I dearly want to start one day.
Happy Birthday Mr Marwood!
All together now *double bass drum battery* AUTOGLASS REPAIRRRRR, AUTOGLASS RE-PLACE! *chugga chugga widdle-widdle-woooooooo*
Day 6: Day off
And after two nights in a row of staying up till 3 or 4am it’s going to be a good lie-in right? WRONG. Firstly I have to wake up at 8am to move my car as it’s parked on a single yellow. So back to sleep right? WRONG. The only other spaces in walking distance are 2 hours only, so it’s back to sleep for a bit; move the car again.Fun. After a hearty birthday sausage and egg breakfast celebration I head off to pick Mrs Thief up from the station and power towards Stevenage for an old buddy’s wedding and a well needed massive amount of drinking ;)
Day 7: Cheltenham
Another night of inadequate sleep and it’s time to drive to Cheltenham, via Bristol, for the inaugural Trees On Fire all dayer - a collaboration between the 2000 Trees Festival organisers, and the lovely folk at Istartedthefire Records featuring a stunning lineup. And Caves ;) I think it’s safe to say that I might not have been firing on all cylinders for my set, but I had a decent stab at it & managed to enjoy all the other bands, particularly &u&i who provided me with enough of an energy boost to get back in the car and drive home to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Day 8: Album release day.
No gig to play today, but I had the whole day off to recover - so spent it catching up with Sky+, playing drums, and generally chilling out. Before drinking a bottle of champagne with Mrs Thief to celebrate the album being out, and then going to watch Fight Like Apes at The Academy and drinking a few more beers, stumbling home with ears ringing and liver throbbing. I will never learn.
Jeff & I <3 Fight Like Apes.
*they lie.
**callbacks ftw.
***Papajohn’s Pizza is healthy right?
****unless she was sorry not to be sticking around for the gig
*****I’m certain I wore all my clothes to the interview, and didn’t answer all of their questions with the word “wibble”
- May 11, 11Destroy It Yourself review round up:
Reviews have started coming in for the album, thought I’d put them all in one place:
Live-Music-Scene
Moon And Back Music
Stereoboard.com (9/10)
Blagsound (7/10)
Whisperin And Hollerin (7/10)
Neon Filler… - May 09, 11Album is out, SHAZAM!:
Morning all - I’ve just got back from the first leg of this tour and to say I am a bit tired would be a statement massive enough to collapse in on itself, creating a black hole and destroying the…
- Apr 19, 11
Just before I rush out skipping into the sunshine I thought I’d just do a nerdy stat post:
I’ve got 482 followers at www.twitter.com/oxygenthiefyeah (I regularly block spam accounts, so the vast majority of those are actual people)
464 listeners at http://www.last.fm/music/Oxygen+Thief
382 “likes” at http://www.facebook.com/oxygenthief666
Which is going to get to that mystical 500 goalpost first then? Place your bets now……..
- Apr 11, 11
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Album
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At the time of writing it is precisely 4 weeks until the release of my first full-length album “Destroy It Yourself”.
…D(IY)-Day is Monday 9th May, so if you could preorder it via one of the following links that’d just about make my life:
http://www.banquetrecords.com/BTR9
http://www.zavvi.com/cd/oxygen-thief/destroy-it-yourself/10426659.html
http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280%3B-1%3B-1%3B-1%3B-1&sku=142721
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004UR2AAC/
http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=12%3B1%3B315%3B-1%3B208&sku=142721
http://www.argosentertainment.co.uk/cd/oxygen-thief/destroy-it-yourself/10426659.html
http://www.asda-entertainment.co.uk/cd/oxygen-thief/destroy-it-yourself/10426659.html
It will also be at all the usual digital places (iTunes / Amazon mp3 etc) soon.
Then again, if you’re still lucky enough to have a local record store then why not pop in/give them a ring and ask if they
can order it in for you? The catalogue number is BTR9, and it’s being released by Broken Tail Records / Josaka.
Other songs are streamable at:
http://www.oxygenthiefmusic.com/
http://www.last.fm/music/Oxygen+Thief
http:///www.myspace.com/oxygenthief
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Free single
—————-
To celebrate all of the above, and to say thanks for pre-ordering, you should totally head to:
http://oxygenthief.bandcamp.com/
and download your very own copy of Terry Nutkins Salute to listen to/set as your ringtone/use as your daily alarm sound.
Cheers for now
OT
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Tour
- Upcoming gigs:
2012- 13 January - MattSetbackStock @ The Croft, Bristol
Past gigs:- 15 Décembre - La Cantine de Belleville, Paris, France
- 13 Décembre - Black Hawk, Tours, France
- 12 Décembre - Mudd Clubb, Strasbourg, France
- 11 Décembre - Le Yeti, Lille, France
- 10 Décembre - Le Carré des Halles, Lille, France
- 4th December - House Show 2 Huddersfield
- 4th December - House Show 1 Leeds
- 3rd December - City Screen Basement Bar, York
- 2nd December - House Show, Kettering
- 24th November - The Vic, Swindon
- 19th November -Rising Sun Arts Centre, Reading
- 13th November - Slak, Cheltenham
- 12th November - The Crumblin' Cookie, Leicester
- 11th November - The Green Park Tavern, Bath
- 9th October - House Show, Wiltshire
- 8th October - Bright House, Birmingham
- 7th October - The Louisiana, Bristol
- 2nd October - matinée gig, The Swan Kidderminster
- 1st October - Manchester, The Garrett
- 30th September - House Show, Aldershot
- 29th September - Fool's Paradise @ Trinity Bar, Harrow. w/Hold Your Horse Is
- 24th September - Frogfest @ Frog & Fiddle, Cheltenham
- 26th August - The Louisiana, Bristol w/Planes (Placebo side-project)
- 30th July - The Harbour Festival, The Louisiana, Bristol
- 23rd July - The Louisiana, Bristol w/Hymns
- 15th July - 2000 Trees Festival - Late Night Unplugged (and in the rain)
- 15th July - 2000 Trees Festival - Greenhouse Stage
- 30th June - The Academy 2, Bristol w/The Hotrats
- 5th June - The Vic, Swindon
- 4th June - Jack Chams, Plymouth
- 2nd June - The Swan, Kidderminster
- 28th May - The Lamb, Devizes
- 27th May - The Croft, Bristol (w/Chris T-T)
- 21st May - The Thomas House, Dublin, Ireland (8pm)
- 21st May - Tower Records, Dublin (3pm)
- 20th May - Arklow, Ireland
- 19th May - Katy Daly's, Belfast
- 14th May - Jamboree, London
- 13th May - The Cricketer's, Kingston
- 4th May - The Mother's Ruin, Bristol
- 3rd May - Café Tarifa, Oxford
- 2nd May - Adam & Eve, Birmingham
- 8th May - Frog & Fiddle, Cheltenham
- 6th May - Banquet Records, Kingston (6pm)
- 5th May - The Cobbler's Thumb, Brighton
- 10th April 2011 - The Cellar Bar, Worcester
- 9th April 2011 - The Garrett, Manchester
- 8th April 2011 - Stereo, York
- 7th April 2011 - The Greyhound, Nottingham
- 31st March 2011 - TheStrand, Cheltenham
- 20th March 2011 - The Vic, Swindon (w/Chris T-T)
- 18th March 2011 - Private Party, Bristol
- 16th March 2011 - The Fleece, Bristol w/Dave McPherson
- 30th January 2011 - Wilmington Arms, London
- 29th January 2011 - The Brighthouse, Birmingham
- 28th January 2011 - Rising Sun Arts Centre, Reading
- 23rd January 2011 - The Vic, Swindon
- 22nd January 2011 - Farnsfield Folk, Farnsfield
- 21st January 2011 - House Show, Nottingham
- 20th January 2011 - City Screen Basement, York
- 19th January 2011 - G&D's, Oxford
- 18th January 2011 - The Louisiana, Bristol
- 16th January 2011 - Slak, Cheltenham
- 15th January 2011 - Cardigan Arms, Leeds
- 13 January - MattSetbackStock @ The Croft, Bristol
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FREE DOWNLOAD
- Click to download Terry Nutkins Salute for free.
The track comes from debut album Destroy It Yourself, which is available from www.amazon.co.uk , www.banquetrecords.com and iTunes.
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Tracks
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Favorites
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Tweets
- The kiwi fruit equivalent of that 'orange peel smile' is scary. http://t.co/S4c7UiZq
- Right, I'm going to sleep and when I wake up I don't want to have a gross cough anymore. Can you sort that out Twitter? Thanks.
- Have 2 tickets to Brand New in London on 11th February - can't make it. Anyone want them? Face value of course.Jan 26, 12 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- dear @therapyofficial, please play The Buzzing & Get Your Dead Hand Off My Shoulder in Bristol. Ta.
- "this panda died naturally from lung cancer"
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shop
- hats and scarves and t-shirts:
www.oxygenthief.bigcartel.com
cds:
amazon
hmv
banquet records (would have to be a special order, but it's an ace shop so email them and see what they can do)
rise
